Although the proportion of the world’s marine fish stocks rated by FAO as overexploited or depleted has remained stable over the past 15 years, the status of certain highly migratory and high-seas species is cause for serious concern, a new report from the UN agency warned today.
Out of all the marine fish stocks monitored by FAO, 25 per cent are either overexploited (17%), depleted (7%) or recovering from depletion (1%), according to the Organization's latest 'State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture' (SOFIA) report, released today.
These figures have stayed roughly stable for the past 15 years.
But the condition of stocks of certain species that are fished either solely or partially in high seas areas outside of national jurisdictions is cause for serious concern - particularly some stocks of so-called 'straddling stocks', which regularly traverse national maritime boundaries and high-seas areas as well as highly migratory oceanic sharks.
More than half of stocks of highly migratory sharks and 66 per cent of high-seas and straddling fish stocks rank as either overexploited or depleted, the report shows, including stocks of species such as hake, Atlantic cod and halibut, orange roughy, basking shark and bluefin tuna.
"While these stocks represent only a small fraction of the world's fishery resources, they are key indicators of the state of a massive piece of the ocean ecosystem," said FAO Assistant Director-General for Fisheries Ichiro Nomura.
SOFIA additionally notes that monitoring of fish captures in high seas areas is inadequate, with catch statistics being reported only for very large areas, making accurately assessing the state of specific high seas stocks difficult and handicapping efforts to manage them more responsibly.
