A study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences states that a new, less selective approach to commercial fishing is needed to ensure the ongoing productivity of marine ecosystems and to maintain biodiversity. The study titled, ‘Ecosystem-based fisheries management requires a change to the selective fishing philosophy’, was written by a team of authors led by Shijie Zhou of the CSIRO Wealth from Oceans Flagship.
According to Dr Zhou ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM) mainly reduce the impact of fishing on marine ecosystems while ensuring sustainable fisheries. Fishing under EBFM underlines how selectively they catch fish. Selective methods catch only one or a few species above a certain size limit are more environmentally responsible.
But recent advances in fishery science and ecology suggest a selective approach may exacerbate rather than reduce the impact of fishing on both fisheries and marine ecosystems. Dr Zhou opined that selective fishing alters biodiversity, which in turn changes ecosystem functioning and may affect fisheries production, hindering rather than helping to achieve the goals of EBFM.
Dr Zhou also said that it is time to critically rethink traditional selective fishing approaches that might not protect ecosystems and fisheries as intended, but may in fact make them more vulnerable to large changes in structure and function. Selective fishing is a “balanced exploitation” approach combining reduced fishing effort, less selective fishing strategies, and better use of the catch to help achieve sustainable overall yields while maintaining healthy ecosystems.
