Figures
- Global trends in world fisheries: impacts on marine ecosystems and food security

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Figure 1

Global marine fisheries trends. Overall landings (open circles) are from the FAO, and suggest an increasing trend through the 1990s. Adjustment for over-reporting by China, as proposed by Watson & Pauly (2001), generates a decreasing trend through the 1990s, which becomes more visible, and is seen to have started in the late 1980s (filled triangles and thick black line) when the catch of only one species, the Peruvian anchoveta, which is strongly impacted by El Niño events, is not considered (filled circles and thin black line).

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Figure 2

Differences between the mean ML of fish and invertebrate species in fisheries landing in the 1950s, and that in the 1990s, mapped into 180 000 cells of 1/2 latitude/longitude degrees according to the procedure in Watson et al. (2004). Note areas of strong decline (greater than 1 m) around the countries bordering the North Atlantic and other industrialized countries. The distribution of the size reductions shown here largely matches those of the TL, as may be expected given the high correlation between TL and body size (Pauly & Watson 2005).

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Figure 3

Mean depth of global fisheries landings, by latitude, from 1950 to 2000, based on catch data originally mapped into 180 000 cells of 1/2 latitude/longitude degree according to the procedure in Watson et al. (2004). Note the trend toward greater depths, particularly in the Southern Hemisphere.

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Figure 4

Major fishing grounds for demersal (table) fishes, represented here through the EEZ (blue) of key exporting countries, and the countries (red) where the bulk of these fishes are consumed. As might be seen, most of these fishes originate and are traded within the Northern Hemisphere. However, there is an increased tendency for the shortfall to originate from the Southern Hemisphere (see figure 3). Similar maps (with the USA, the EU, Japan and China as major importers and the Southern Hemisphere as supplier) emerge when pelagic fishes, or invertebrates (shrimps, squids, etc.), are considered.