It reviews past forecasts, present trends and outlooks for single aspects of …

• Abstract
• Introduction
• Past forecasts, present trends and perspectives
• The crystal ball challenge
• Discussion and Conclusions
• Glossary
• Appendices
• Endnotes
• References
• Figures
• Tables

Biology Articles » Hydrobiology » Marine Biology » Gloom and doom? The future of marine capture fisheries » Past forecasts, present trends and perspectives

Past forecasts, present trends and perspectives

- Gloom and doom? The future of marine capture fisheries

The following review of the past attempts to predict the future of fisheries should provide a way to probe our capacity to forecast the evolution of the sector. Many of the forecasts made in the past have been tested by time. Some of the most recent ones are still to be tested in the future.

Natural oscillations in ecosystem productivity have a significant impact on the resources and the fisheries and may result in faster depletion and slower recovery. Oscillations of ca. 55–60 years have been detected in the North Atlantic and North Pacific for species such as herring (Clupea harengus), cod (Gadus morhua), sardine (Sardinia pilchardus), anchovy (Eugralis spp.), salmon (Salmo spp.), Alaska pollock (Theragra chalcogramma), as well as Chilean jack mackerel (Trachurus murphyi),3 with phase opposition between the two areas (Klyashtorin 2001). Predictions up to 2040 of the respective rises and falls in the two areas (in the range of 5–20 mt) indicate that, overall, the total catch of these species would first increase by ca. 6 mt (until 2015) and then decrease by ca. 3 mt by 2040.4 Overall, all other factors remaining unchanged, the important but opposed variations of the main and most variable species will affect total supply in a manner that is quantitatively globally negligible (albeit locally significant) and similar to what has been experienced since 1950. If the global fish trade system is reactive enough, these oscillations might not significantly affect availability and prices, particularly as the variations in the other two-thirds of the world catch, consisting of more than 500 species, is buffered by their diversity. Influences at lower frequencies (e.g. related to cosmic oscillations), might become evident in the future.

Longer-term climate change will affect the ocean environment and its capacity to sustain fishery stocks and is likely to exacerbate the stresses on marine fish stocks, from fishing and other marine or land-based activities. The extent to which it will affect fisheries, in the different regions and species, is however not yet clear. Productivity might increase or decrease significantly. Ecosystem boundaries may be displaced and species composition may change remarkably (e.g. Blanchard & Boucher 2002). In polluted areas, oxygen depletion will be aggravated, particularly if flooding facilitates the flow of pollutants to the sea. Fisheries infrastructures may have to be displaced, at high cost. Fisheries lacking mobility (e.g. small-scale fisheries) might suffer the most. Freshwater flows will be modified. New diseases may be introduced. Assuming such changes will occur more slowly than the already experienced natural variations, there should be little additional impact on supply/demand and prices. However, the existence of flexible management systems and access agreements between neighbouring countries would facilitate the adaptation to change (Everett et al. 1995). More practically, the eventual impact cannot yet be accounted for but must be regarded as a major source of ‘surprise’.

Non-conventional species are often mentioned as an additional source of potential. Both Chapman (1970) and Gulland (1972) mentioned that proper use of krill (100 mt), lantern fishes and squids might raise the potential of marine fisheries to 200 mt. In the early 1970s, Sprague & Arnold (1972) considered that opening new fisheries in the Indian and Antarctic Oceans, improving management and harvesting lower trophic levels of the ocean food chain, marine fisheries alone could produce as much as 400 mt, including 50–100 mt of octopus and squid, 50–75 mt of krill and 100–150 mt of mesopelagic and deep-sea fish. They deduced that mobilization of the latter type of resources would take 40–50 years (i.e. would materialize by 2010–2020). The already well developed exploitation of cephalopods, now hampered by the international ban on large-scale driftnet fishing, does not seem able to uphold that forecast. Krill and mesopelagic fishes have been only moderately used, and the validity of the forecast remains to be tested. Considering the experience acquired since the 1970s and the potential problems related to the integrity of the ecosystem’s trophic chain, the potential of unconventional resources is considered as very limited.

Large cetaceans have been very significantly affected by human hunting, leading to the extinction of a few species and quasi-extinction for many others. Following decades of protection, however, and despite various management loopholes allowing some hunting to continue on some species, several species and populations are still very abundant (e.g. minke whales, Balaenoptera acurostrata) or have recovered to high abundance levels. This has led to the question of increased or renewed exploitation for human food, arguing that these animals compete with humans for food and indeed harvest more fishes from the oceans than humans do. According to Tamura (2003), marine cetaceans consume at least 249–434 mt of seafood, and their consumption of fishes represents from 66% to 144% of human harvest. Others argue that the species composition of the human and cetacean harvest overlap only partly and the argument is far from closed. It is being proposed (and argued against) that a general reopening of whaling would increase the availability of fishery resources. This would require reaching a global consensus, which today seems unlikely, and unilateral actions have already been taken.

Producing significantly more would require that the present pattern of fishing be dramatically modified; significantly increasing fishing pressure on already depressed top predators, reducing the abundance of those presently abundant cetaceans to reduce their consumption, further altering the ecosystem species composition by increasing the abundance of prey, thereby allowing an increase in their harvest. Improved technology would be needed to catch and process unconventional resources (e.g. mesopelagic fish species and krill) to turn them into acceptable edible products. This would, however, accentuate the ‘fishing-down-the-food-chain’ strategy, pushing it to its limits with uncertain ecological consequences, including unstable (hyper-fluctuating) ecosystems driven by climatic variations with local cycles of glut and scarcity and possibly massive oxygen depletion in coastal areas as unconsumed plankton settles and rots. Industry may adapt itself to the situation through flexible multipurpose catching and processing technology, managing to collect and process massive plankton biomasses for human and animal food. It is doubtful though that such a path will be globally acceptable.

An update of the comprehensive analysis of the fishery statistics time-series collected by FAO since the early 1950s undertaken by Grainger & Garcia (1996) is given in figure 2. This shows that: (i) undeveloped resource fisheries, producing much less than their potential, decreased rapidly to zero by the middle of the 1970s; (ii) developing resource fisheries, with increasing landings but still producing less than their potential, increased until 1970–1990 and then decreased; (iii) mature resource fisheries, nearly producing their potential, increased until the 1980s and seem to have decreased since then; (iv) senescent resources, producing consistently less than their historical maximum, increased regularly since 1950, stabilizing perhaps during the last decade at ca. 30%. If we include in this category the recovering resources (identified in this analysis for the first time), i.e. those showing an increase in production following a period of consistently low landings, this percentage reaches 32–36%.

The two analyses referred to above use different terminologies owing to the different source data and methodologies used and possibly the interpretation of the results. The correspondence is given in table 1. To facilitate the comparison between the results yielded by the two approaches, the second set of results has been re-elaborated (figure 3).

The pictures obtained from the two approaches may be compared with caution, considering that the stock assessments are available until 2003, while the statistics are only available up to 2002 and the total periods covered are different. Nonetheless, the results for 2003 (figure 3a) and for the common period 1974–2000 (figures 1b and 3b) are similar. The analysis of catch statistics tends to give higher values (+ 10%) for underexploited and overexploited stocks and lower ones (− 20%) for fully exploited stocks. Both analyses show no real improvement in overfishing, although the statistical trends point to the beginning of a modest recovery (figure 3, top right angle).

One concern is that, having depleted large valuable stocks, fishing has redirected some effort and added a lot of it on other species lower down the food web. The strategy was advocated in the 1970s to increase fisheries production (Sprague & Arnold 1972). The consequence for change in catch composition and implications for the ecosystem were noted by FAO in the mid-1990s and in 2000 (Garcia & Newton 1997). The phenomenon was thoroughly investigated by Pauly et al. (1998)7 and by Caddy & Garibaldi (2000).

The pressure in support of stock rebuilding can only increase exponentially as fisheries issues become environmental ones and a significant improvement should be expected, certainly in the developed world, perhaps in the developing one. Monitoring and diagnosis of the state of stocks and elaboration of management advice will continue to be complicated by natural oscillations and climate change. Management systems will become more competent in predicting changes but are still far from the type of responsiveness needed to adjust rapidly to systematic forecasts.

Larkin (1991) underlined that progress in aquaculture followed four main directions: (i) information sharing and application of this knowledge (about nutrition, behaviour, disease, genetics) to production; (ii) increasing demand for seafood because of population increase and adoption of healthier feeding habits; (iii) technological improvement in handling, processing, storage; (iv) reduction in costs of transport with increased speed and reliability. He considered that ‘within only a few decades, cultured production of marine and freshwater organisms could exceed that from harvesting of wild stocks’ comparing the rapid aquaculture development process to the ‘pastoral revolution’. He predicted:

• Stagnation of world wild fish catch and overtaking by aquaculture production before 2020 (the latter not being foreseen in most recent analysis).
• Developments in aquaculture towards better control of reproduction, seaward extension of coastal aquaculture and development of polyculture.
• Growing coordination between capture fisheries and aquaculture administration because of their linkages through the knowledge needed to develop them, their interaction on the market and the threats of land-based pollution on both. This coordination issue is still quasi-nonexistent but is now being considered, for instance, in the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM).

Muir & Young (1998) predict that aquaculture will become a global sector, still based on a few key species, progressively evolving towards the production of versatile raw material products, efficient in terms of both productivity and environmental impact. Brummett (2003) confirms that, if it responds to deregulation and to the market as other agro-industries did in the twentieth century, aquaculture will have no problem in meeting the demand challenge. They believe that consumer preferences will shape the sector, that globalization will condition survival, favouring larger units and global low-cost sources such as cage salmon or tilapia and pond catfish or shrimp, and that integration with fisheries will be essential for harmonious co-development of the supply chain, particularly in coastal areas, which offer a large potential for the expansion of aquaculture.

It is usually agreed that the necessary demand,willingness to pay, skills, space, feed resources, etc., are potentially available for this expansion. It is also agreed that challenges are not lacking, related inter alia to environmental issues such as habitat modifications or destructions (e.g. mangroves); water and health management; genetic alterations and species introductions; conflicts for use of space and other resources (including with capture fisheries) and release of contaminants. Progress can be expected, as the sub-sector becomes a fully fledged primary production industry. The technology will become more efficient (e.g. in the use of water and feeds), more parsimonious (in the use of space and water and release of contaminants into the ecosystem), shifting from mono- to polyculture. It will complete the range of production systems from capture fisheries, fisheries enhancement and culture-based fisheries to capture-based, extensive and intensive farming systems, integrating with irrigation, agriculture and fisheries for better use of inputs and space.

The predictions available reflect a strong ‘technological optimism’ (in the sense of Costanza et al. 2000) despite the obvious environmental impact and potential scarcity of freshwater, appropriate space and feed supply, particularly for carnivore species. The current aquaculture production (ca. 35 mt, one-quarter of the world fishery production) is already higher than the 1995 FAO forecasts, and production is projected to reach ca. 70 mt in 2015 (Bruinsma 2003) and 80–90 mt by 2030 (FAO 2000). Other outlooks and the articulation with capture fisheries production will be discussed in § 2 d. These predictions are all rather optimistic in that they do not foresee a problem for aquaculture in meeting the future supply–demand gap. Brugère & Ridler (2004), looking at the aquaculture development plans of 18 top-producing countries conclude that the summed national expectations for development match the predictions made from global supply–demand analysis, even though discrepancies are found at regional level.

 

Reported world production of marine capture fisheries has increased from 1.5–2 mt in 1850 (Moiseev 1965) to ca. 18 mt before World War II (Chapman 1970), increasing exponentially from 19 to 80 mt between 1950 and the mid-1980s and rising very slowly since then to 85–88 mt (figure 4). Considering that catches reported by China might be overestimated, world marine catches might have indeed stagnated at ca. 80 mt, omitting discards (ca. 20 mt in the 1980s and 1990s and 10 mt since then) and IUU catches. If the Chinese data are excluded, the marine landings of all other countries have decreased by ca. 10% during the 1990s. If Chinese data were corrected as proposed by Watson & Pauly (2001), the total marine harvest from wild stocks would appear stable since the early 1990s (Garcia & de Leiva Moreno 2001). Nevertheless, the annual rate of increase of reported marine catches has decreased from ca. 6–9% per year in the late 1950s and early 1960s to almost zero in the first half of the 1990s (see Garcia & Newton 1997), indicating that the maximum possible supply of conventional species has been reached. The straight horizontal thick line drawn on figure 4 beyond the present time includes all species and sources of wild fishes and indicates the total potential supply. Whether or not it will be fully realized will depend on the performance of management and on what will be considered an acceptable impact on the ecosystem in future.

Approximately 70% of marine production is used directly for human food, and marine fisheries play an important role in food security. Part of the world fish production (mainly marine) is reduced to fishmeal and oil used for raising cattle, poultry and fish and is therefore used as human food indirectly. The proportion of the reported marine capture fisheries production that has been used directly for human food has declined from ca. 80% in the 1950s and 1960s to ca. 65% since the early 1970s (Garcia & de Leiva Moreno 2003). Coastal ecosystems produce more than 90% of the food provided by marine ecosystems. Coral reefs alone produce 10–12% of the fish caught in tropical countries and 20–25% of the fish caught by developing nations. As much as 90% of the animal protein consumed in many Pacific island countries is of marine origin. The reported marine landings used for direct human consumption have steadily increased with time reaching ca. 55–57 mt at the end of the 1990s. When China’s statistics are excluded, however, the production appears to have been stagnant since the mid-1980s. Considering human population size, the world production of food fish per capita appears to have practically doubled since 1950, stabilizing at 9–10 kg of fish per capita since the early 1970s. If we exclude China, however, production has declined by 20% (from 11.8 to 9.3) since the mid-1980s.

As marine and freshwater fishes, either wild or cultured, are considered interchangeable food items, the demand for fish is usually jointly analysed. Starting from production and consumption data available in 1965 (ca. 50 mt), Giarini et al. (1977) correctly predicted that the total world production from all ecosystems and modes of production in 2000, 35 years later, would reach 110–170 mt (actual production: 130 mt, discards excluded). Robinson (1980) predicted that total demand (increasing by 3.3% per year) would outpace total supply, (increasing at 1.1% per year) decreasing per capita consumption, particularly in Africa. He did not foresee, however, that aquaculture, mentioned as a possible gap-filling solution, would indeed do so (FAO 2002). He rightly stressed, however, the growing role of the demand for fishmeal (and oils).8Westlund (1995) estimated that regional demand for fish would reach ca. 100–120 mt by 2010, with the highest consumption in China, Japan, and the rest of Asia and a broadening gap in average consumption between developed and developing countries. She also predicted an increase in demand for fresh, frozen and value-added products as well as a general increase in prices. Ye (1999) estimated for FAO the global demand for seafood in 2015 and 2030 based on extrapolations of trends in consumption and gross domestic product per capita. He predicted a doubling of the total demand between by 1995 (95 mt) and 2030 (183 mt) owing to population growth (for 40%) and economic growth (for 60%). The result would be an increase in total demand (of ca. 2.1% per year) and demand per capita (ca. 1.1% per year). Even if per capita consumption were to stagnate instead at the 1995 level, 127 mt would still be required by 2030. Wild fish production stagnating at ca. 80–100 mt, the results point to a dramatic increase in pressure on aquaculture to fill the supply gap.

Delgado et al. (2003) modelled future supplies, demand, prices and trade of food fish up to 2030 in the broader context of evolving world food market.9 They simulated a moderately conservative baseline10 scenario, basically extrapolating recent trends with decreasing rates (table 2).11

They also considered alternative scenarios involving: faster or slower aquaculture expansion; lower production than expected in China; an increase in aquaculture feeds use and a so-called ecological ‘collapse’, a worst-case scenario with a decrease in capture fisheries production of 1% per year. The forecast for total supply ranges from 108 mt in the ‘catastrophic’ scenario to 144 mt for the most optimistic one with a baseline (most probable) value of 130 mt. The baseline scenario forecasts modest fish price increases (6–15%) by 2020. The study foresees a significant increase in fishmeal and oils value in most scenarios owing to fast developing aquaculture out-competing other sectors in the demand for a luxury feed item for high-value carnivores. The ‘collapse’ scenario—indeed a progressive erosion of the global resource base—leads to a 17% decrease in wild fish production, economically compensated by price adjustments. In general, per capita consumption is seen to increase in the developing world. The authors predict that, despite globalization and consequent tariff reductions on unprocessed products, a high tariff on processed products and non-tariff barriers will be maintained or raised to block imports. They stress that this could have the collateral effect of displacing small-scale fisheries of the developing world through economies of scale.

FAO produces every twoyears the only recurrent fisheries outlooks available for its Committee on Fisheries. Since 1996, these have been published in The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture (SOFIA; FAO 1997, 1999, 2000, 2002). SOFIA 2002 contains a forecast for fisheries production until 2030 partly based on the work carried out by Ye (1999). It forecasts that, over the next 30 years, the demand for seafood and its per capita consumption will continue to increase at decreasing rates. Total capture fisheries production will stagnate around the levels observed during the last decades (90–95 mt, of which 80–85 mt from marine capture fisheries). Total production will increase to ca. 190 mt, compared with the 130 mt of the early 2000s. Aquaculture production will continue to grow more slowly, from the present 36 mt to ca. 83 mt. In developed countries, consumption patterns will increase demands and imports of high-cost/high-value species from the developing world. In developing countries, high-cost/high-value species will be exported while low-cost/low-value species will be imported for local human food. Latin America will become the largest capture fisheries producer and leading net exporter, while Europe, USA, Africa and Japan will increase their imports. The Near East will shift from net importer to net exporter. South Asia will shift from net exporter to net importer. Europe’s and Japan’s capture production will continue to stagnate. The USA’s demand will further shift to high-value species but its production will stagnate. The increase in demand related to population growth and economic development will be met by increased aquaculture production.

Table 3 demonstrates that the forecast of SOFIA 2002 falls within the range of forecasts made in Fish 2020 (Delgado et al. 2003). The SOFIA production figures (total, human consumption and aquaculture) are on the high end of the Fish 2020 forecasts but are more pessimistic for capture fisheries production.

These predictions, conditioned by the limited potential of wild conventional resources, the assumed human population growth and the progress of aquaculture, are still to be tested. There seems to be agreement, however, that:

• Production will stagnate in capture fisheries and more than double in aquaculture, meeting the demand resulting from population growth and economic growth and containing price increases.
• Global per capita consumption from marine resources will decrease, simply because of human population continued growth and development. Wild fish prices may however remain rather stable. However, considering the poor state of marine resources, the growing degradation of the environment and the impact of climate change (e.g. in coral reef fisheries, destroyed by coral bleaching) the ‘worst case scenario’ elaborated by Delgado et al. (2003), assuming a 1% decrease of the resources per year, may be too optimistic.
• Asia will become a net importer and Latin America a leading exporter.
• Rich countries, already net importers, will increase their trade deficit.
• A strong market for fishmeal and oil will develop for aquaculture, affecting marine capture fisheries for the corresponding species.

Approximately 50% of the total world fish harvest is internationally traded. Total fish trade from all sources (measured by total exports) increased from 2.5–3.4 billion US$ in 1969–71 to ca. 55 billion US$ in 2000 (an increase from ca. 5% to 10% of total agricultural trade). The majority of this trade is from marine capture fisheries, the export value of which was worth more than 40 billion US$ in 1999. Since 1976, however, the relative annual rate of growth in trade has been decreasing and is approaching zero (figure 5).

This would indicate that, after about three decades of adjustments reflecting the post independence economic development process, the progressive implementation of the new Law of the Sea, and the discovery and exploitation of practically all conventional fish resources, world fish trade would reach a period of stabilization12 (zero growth) possibly c. 2005–2010. This also seems to indicate that, for the moment, the large increase in aquaculture production of the last decade has mainly been consumed locally. However, if as foreseen by Delgado et al. (2003) and in SOFIA (FAO 2002), India, Latin America and Africa become significant exporters of aquaculture products during the next two decades, we might see a new global increase in trade in the future.

This global picture masks variations between regions. The global contribution of the developing world to fish trade has increased regularly since the 1970s, from 32% in 1969–1971 (Garcia & Newton 1997) to 43% in 1990 and just over 50% in 2000 and 2001. Garcia and Newton stressed that the sustainability of the global fishery system was at stake in a ‘suicidal’ loop, involving growing removals and exports from the dwindling developing countries’ fish resources to supply the overfished developed world, while simultaneously dumping on that developing world the excess capacity of the developed one, exporting overfishing to the main source of the global trade system. The future picture in this respect depends on the evolution of capacity in the developed world and the fate of the removed excess, the amount of which is well beyond the residual absorbing capacity (if any) left in the developing world.

The data on the trade deficit or surplus since 1976 (figure 6), when the extension of EEZs became generalized, show that: (i) Latin America is rapidly growing as a major net exporter; (ii) Exports from China, Africa and Oceania are developing more slowly, (iii) Canada, United States and Europe are becoming the main net importers; (iv) Asia (excluding China) is the main net importer but its situation may be reversing since 1995.

The progressively greater liberalization of the market may add significant pressure on developing countries’ resources, particularly high-value fish for export. As this is apparently compensated by them through increasing imports of low-value fish, the pressure exerted by consumers, rich or poor, will spread to all types of resources. Exports from developing countries need to be compensated by production of low-value aquaculture fish to maintain local food security. A global reduction of subsidies to the catching sector would increase the advantage of the developing world as well as their exports. However, simulations indicate a growing conflict between internal and international demand (i.e. between local food security and export earnings) as populations grow in developing countries, particularly those in the low- to medium-income ones, where demographic growth will be higher (Delgado et al. 2003).

 

Fishing and processing technology have underpinned the fantastic boom in fisheries between 1950 and 1970: freezing; diesel engines; synthetic fibres; acoustic devices; hydraulic power; skinning, filleting, dressing and filling machines; fishmeal machines; air transportation for high-priced goods or bulk shipment (e.g. for fishmeal) (Chapman 1970). The past three decades have seen the continuous improvement of navigation, acoustic and fish location devices (including computers, spotter planes and helicopters, remote sensing, automated sea mapping) and processing methods for new products (e.g. fish protein extracts such as surimi). How much of this had been foreseen?

We have not found many futuristic predictions of fishing technology. Forty years ago, Alverson & Wilimovsky (1964) provided a fictional picture of future (high-tech) fishing, much of which has still not been achieved even today and could well be taken as a possible future for the third millennium fisheries. Some of their fiction has become reality: for example, remote measurement of ocean temperature and other parameters; electronic single-fish detection and identification; pop-up, free-floating devices, transmitting their data to satellites (e.g. archival fish tags) and sound, bubbles and electrical barriers and irradiation to preserve food items. Other predictions have not materialized to any extent, at least to our knowledge and may still remain at the horizon of today’s engineering and may dramatically increase fishing capacity: fish attraction by sounds; fish detection ‘drones’, networks of unmanned fish-detecting buoys connected to satellites; sea-bottom nuclear reactors to generate upwellings; chemical detectors of fish presence; attraction and herding of fishes through olfactory stimuli.

In 1964, the New Scientist magazine (cited by Larkin 1991) published a series of papers predicting that, by 1984, 20 years later, fisheries would undergo a number of ‘revolutions’ including: (i) progress in fish rearing and species transplantation; (ii) mid-water trawling technology; (iii) discovery of new food resources in squids (Cephalopods of the order Theutida), Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) and redfish (Sebastes spp.) stocks; (iv) intensive development of coastal resorts and sea sports; (v) United Nations’ ownership of the seafloor and (vi) increased role of scientific advice for governments. The two major unknown factors conditioning the future were identified as the capacity to reduce pollution and to ensure sustainability of wildlife in the absence of reserves. Retrospectively, one can only be impressed. The predictions were largely correct. Land-based pollution is still a major unknown (as stressed by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992 and the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002), and the role of marine reserves or protected areas is now a central issue in fisheries management. The same series of papers rightly predicted global warming, use of trained porpoises for human leisure and more accurate long-term weather forecasting using satellites and buoys. The only failed prediction was that humans would develop control over the genesis of hurricanes.

Implicitly assuming that present developments were going to spread, Hotta (2000) forecasts an ‘artificialization’ of the coastal environment between now and 2010 with growing use of artificial reefs, enhancement techniques, ranching and extensive mariculture. The main problems will remain overcapacity, overfishing, over-crowded small-scale fisheries and increased social unrest. Increased pollution will affect fish quality and productivity. Aquaculture, emerging as a primary resources consumer, becomes a potential environmental threat, with poor public image.13 The possibility to cultivate directly seafood tissue (as opposed to organisms) is contemplated, despite the technological challenge and the probable market resistance (Kearney et al. 2002).

Many technological developments are still in prospect with diverse impacts on the sector. As they are usually ‘imported’ from other sectors, they are not too difficult to identify, even though the likelihood and timing of their adoption can only be guessed. Without any priority ranking, potential developments include:

• more efficient use of fishmeal and oils;
• better species/sex/size selectivity using hormones or Pavlovian reflexes (over short distances) and sounds (over longer distances);
• biodegradable fishing equipment;
• habitat mapping (acoustics) for better targeted fishing and habitat protection;
• better set fishing equipment for reduced bottom impact, including offshore fishing platforms using attracting stimuli and devices;
• autonomous fish/plankton detection devices to improve assessment and forecasts;
• vessel location and monitoring systems;
• more effective and automated information processing;
• generalization of the use of DNA tracking for fishery product identification (e.g. shark fins);
• low-impact aquaculture;
• better decontamination processes to mitigate the effect of growing pollution;15
• fertilization of the iron-limited oceans to improve primary productivity;
• automatic fish sorting and measuring devices (e.g. through image processing);
• automated freezing at a very early stage of fish processing;
• development of methods to reduce waste of water-soluble proteins in surimi production;
• use of archival tags to monitor the delivery chain;
• production of pharmaceuticals from marine animals, etc.

Small-scale fisheries will be protected as long as deemed necessary to maintain populations in rural areas. Boat quality and safety on board can still be notably increased, but the potential for increased capacity through adoption of new and low-cost technology is extremely high. Fishing villages can be modernized and equipped to ensure the product quality required for high-value markets. Small-scale fisheries can be integrated vertically with industrial processing and marketing, as well as with aquaculture (e.g. for ranching). Last, but not least, as subsidies are suppressed and coastal countries develop their own capacity to fish in their EEZs and in the adjacent high sea, long-range fleets are likely to disappear. The last to disappear are likely to be those targeting highly variable pelagic resources for which an alternative to large-scale rotational exploitation may not be easy to find. A note of warning, however: globalization has already led to extinction of large sections of the artisanal segments of many production sectors. In a fisheries’ Market World (see § 3), the same causes may well have the same effects.

 

Economists and biologists are still trying to define fishing capacity and to measure its excess (Cunningham & Gréboval 2001; Pascoe & Gréboval 2003). Usually, all segments of the fishery sector have some operational justification for their own capacity and expect that any excess will be identified and removed elsewhere. Conventional measures, as well as limited entry, have failed to reduce it and use rights are strongly advocated for the purpose. Excess capacity also seems to exacerbate reflagging and IUU fishing. However, the global economic forces have had a major and little known impact on the world fleet’s size. Towards the end of the 1990s, according to FAO statistics, the world fleet comprised approximately 4.1 million vessels, of which 1.3 million were decked and 2.8 million undecked, of which 65% were unpowered, showing the importance of small-scale fisheries. Figure 7 shows the increasing trend in numbers of decked fishing vessels of all sizes since 1970 and the slower growth during the 1990s.

Although FAO provides some global fleet statistics, there is no comprehensive database of individual vessels of the world. The Lloyds database contains data on vessels over 100 gross tons (GT) (or ca. 24 m overall length) and may give indications of historical trends. It is not comprehensive and in 1999 held only 80% of the vessels registered in the FAO database (Smith 1999). It also contains only approximately 400 Chinese vessels, while the fleet, which has grown rapidly in the 1970s and particularly in the 1990s, contains more than 15000 vessels (figure 8). However, Smith considers that the trends observed in the database are representative of those in the whole fleet. Its coverage has improved with time,16 and the more recent data are closer to reality. The bulk of the present fleet has been built essentially between 1970 and 1990, and the comparison of the age structure of the registered fleet between 2001 and 2002 shows that the number of ‘deletions’, as expected, increase with age (figure 9) and that the annual rate of deletion (a ‘mortality rate’ of vessels) is low from 1 to 35 years, increasing only slowly with age and increasing very rapidly after 40 years (figure 10).

To rationalize the data, the functions fitting the data before and after age 35 were calculated using simple linear regressions, and values for the intermediate ages (36–39) were interpolated. Applying the rationalized deletion rates to the age structure of the fleet in 2001, the numbers-at-age were calculated back for as many years as ages are available in the 2001 dataset, yielding both a calculated number of new entrants (e.g. ‘recruitment’ at age 0) and total fleet size for the period 1953–2001. Assuming deletion rates at age remain valid in the future and the new registrations stabilize at 300 vessels per year (as observed during the past few years), the total registered fleet has been projected for the period 2002–2040 (figure 11).

The registrations appear to have rapidly increased from ca. 500 per year in the 1950s to ca. 2000 by the mid-1970s, rapidly decreasing to ca. 300 currently. The boom corresponds to the geographical expansion phase of the fisheries from the 1960s to the mid-1970s. The sharp decline between 1975 and 1985 appears to coincide both with the well-known oil crisis (and oil price increase), as well as with the main phase of unilateral extension of EEZs by coastal states. The 1990s decrease coincides with the demise of the long-range fishing from the former USSR fleets. These coincidences tend to support the idea that these numbers reflect, to a large extent, the boom-and-bust of long-distance fishing, an interpretation reinforced by the good relation between the estimated ‘recruitment’ and the landings of distant water fishing17 (figure 12). Assuming a constant recruitment of 300 vessels per year, this fleet would decrease by more than 50% between now and 2030.

The likely evolution of the large-scale fleet (more than 100 t) given above must be considered with caution. However, the trends in the database are considered representative of changes in the whole fleet (Smith 1999). More recently, this growth has been halted by stricter licensing control and the introduction of vessel-scrapping schemes. Despite these reservations, the results indicate that the three-decades-long boom of the large vessel fleet, prompted successively by exploration and EEZ extension, is over. The potential increase in oil prices will most probably reduce that fleet further.

During that period, however, the coastal countries’ fleets grew in numbers and vessel fishing power, developing a fishing capacity equal—if not superior—to that of the foreign fleets that they progressively replaced. The overall continuing degradation of the resources illustrated in the earlier sections indicates that the overall fishing capacity is still extremely high. Whether and how fast capacity will decrease in future depends on progress made in governance (see § 2 h). Considering the international agreement on the need for capacity reduction, e.g. stimulated by the FAO International Plan of Action (IPOA-Capacity) and global efforts to eliminate subsidies, it is likely that investments in fleet building will decrease substantially (as simulated in figure 10). What is far from clear is whether the technology-driven efficiency gains will be sufficiently controlled to keep fishing mortality down. General adoption of fishing rights may be effective in that respect at the cost of transitional exclusion (Garcia & Boncoeur 2004).

Understanding the causes of past problems and their present evolution is useful when looking into the future. As mentioned in § 1, numerous authors have written about causes of the relative failure of fisheries management18 and they will not be repeated here. These have been detected decades ago and attempts are being made to correct them through: (i) various forms of user rights; (ii) improved frameworks (e.g. UNCED, WSSD and FAO Code of Conduct); (iii) reduced subsidies; (iv) reinforced role of Flag and Port States; (v) strengthening of management fishery bodies; (vi) improved science; improved participation, transparency and public awareness; (vii) ecolabelling; (viii) capacity building; and (ix) precautionary and ecosystem approaches to fisheries. Binding and voluntary international instruments have definitely improved the arsenal of rules and regulations available to the states and the sector.19 Too little progress has been made, however, in the area of control of the access to fishing, limitations and reduction of fishing capacity and establishment of explicit user rights (Garcia & Boncoeur 2004). Very little has been achieved in terms of integration of fisheries governance into coastal area management, the latter progressing rather slowly. The process of extension of EEZs is being completed, with obvious difficulties in the remaining and disputed areas such as the semi-enclosed Mediterranean Sea. Attempts to gain coastal State jurisdiction beyond 200 miles seems to be in abeyance, perhaps waiting for assessment of progress in relation to IUU fishing, transboundary stocks. RFMOs are being held to greater accountability by the international community (FAO 2002). The process of sub-regionalization of the RFMOs, aimed at higher relevance and performance is not always supported by adequate resources and coordination and functional gaps exist where there is no RFMO (e.g. in the northern Indian Ocean) or the existing one is not effective (e.g. Asia–Pacific Fisheries Commission in Southeast Asia). In several bodies, members have refused to shift from an advisory/coordinating role to a management one, illustrating a lack of political will. With some exceptions, regional fishery bodies in the developing world are less functional today than they were 10 or 20 years ago. The technical and financial assistance provided by donors during those times dried up in the 1990s and was not replaced, as expected, by higher financial commitments from member states and more effective delegation of powers, and the trained human resources are fading away. As a consequence, but with some exceptions, for example in the North Atlantic, South Pacific and Southeast Atlantic, fishery bodies do not seem to be on their way to meet expectations.

In the early 1970s, Larkin & Wilimovsky (1973) pessimistically predicted that ‘despite efforts to intervene, there will be little sustained success and fisheries will proceed more or less as if they were not managed’ and their detailed forecasts represent a rather accurate account of fisheries governance during the three following decades. Garcia (1992) correctly outlined the probable developments of the following decade regarding overcapacity, overfishing, conflicts, non-consumptive uses, allocation, environmental degradation, subsidies, discards, statistics, high-sea and deep-sea resources, RFMOs, endangered species, creeping jurisdiction, public opinion and precautionary approach, most of which had been previously singled out in the literature. Garcia & Grainger (1997) did not agree that the marine capture fisheries could be considered a ‘sunset industry’, considering its essential role as a source of food and livelihood and relatively low societal risk it represents when objectively compared to chemical pollution, ozone depletion or degradation of freshwater resources. They foresaw two possible developments in the absence of significant progress in governance: (i) acute crises, with progressively more frequent occurrences of brutal and long-lasting resources collapses; or (ii) a chronic degenerative trend with surreptitious degradation of the resources and socio-economic conditions. The present global situation, as during the past five decades, can indeed be characterized as a chronic degenerative trend with occasional, localized acute crises.

Progress made during the past decade in the institutional and normative framework of fisheries seems to lead to optimistic outlooks. In his fictitious, retroactive and prospective review of world marine fisheries for the period 1975–2025, Beckett (1998) expresses his faith in the full implementation of available instruments and significant progress in all the deficient areas referred to above. A similar optimistic vision transpires also from the analysis by Parsons & Becket (1998) and Rosenberg (1998). The key unknown for the future is in the degree to which industry leaders and policymakers will indeed implement the wealth of high-level commitments mobilized in the last decade of the twentieth century. While this may be locally possible, it seems difficult to generalize, considering the past performance of fisheries management and the lack of implementation capacity in many areas.

Science has been a major component of fisheries governance, and the phenomenal progress in scientific understanding accomplished during the past 50 years has significantly improved the elaboration of management advice. In spite of this, management performance has been dismal, and the levels of uncertainty are still very high. UNCED and WSSD have highlighted the need for more research to establish sustainability indicators for fisheries and test the protocols for precautionary and ecosystem approach to fisheries. In a market-driven economy, with increased privatization, fishery research can shift rapidly from mode 1, largely fundamental and publicly funded, to mode 2, essentially problem-solving and privately funded.20 By design, the latter may optimize private use at the expense of public interest (Nelson 1998). The growing dependence on private funding and the confusion between science and advocacy threaten the independence of science and its credibility as a support of improved governance in front of global societal risks (Jasanoff 1994). The increasing recourse to litigation to rebuff scientifically backed management decisions, at least in some countries, also represents a preoccupation.21