How to promote sustainable fisheries and marine conservation for coastal communities? | Experts’ Opinions

Ocean conservation is a global challenge that requires collective action. In many developing countries, fishing represents one of the main food and income sources, and also one of the most important economic activities in coastal communities. However, on a large scale, excessive fishing can cause significant damage to seabed ecosystems and to the reproductive capacity of the marine world, similar to intensive agriculture’s effect on the soil, without proper mitigation. However, by working together, local communities can develop and implement effective conservation strategies that are both ecologically and socially sustainable. For more insights into this field, learn from the experts below.

DevelopmentAid: How can coastal communities balance the need for economic development and conserving marine resources?

“Firstly, by conducting scientific studies to determine the size of their stocks and their productivity with affordable data and solid scientific methods. The science of stock assessment has been developed to determine the size and productivity of stocks for large-scale fisheries, and therefore it uses expensive data from biological laboratories and surveys in modern research vessels. These kinds of data are not affordable in coastal fisheries, neither in developed nor developing countries. I have developed methods to assess stocks from coastal fisheries in Europe, Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, publishing scientific papers. While doing this I have observed that it is not beyond the reach of coastal communities to gain the scientific knowledge needed to determine the size and productivity of coastal stocks with affordable data. Secondly, by clearly defining the balance between two risks in determining fishery harvest rates: the risk of overfishing and the risk of underfishing. The former risk leads to collapsing the stocks thus denying fishing opportunities to future generations, while the latter risk leads to foregone yield that was not realized due to excessively conservative management. In my experience assessing coastal fish and invertebrate stocks in Europe, Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, I’ve found that underfishing is nearly as common as overfishing. Managers and fisheries that lack knowledge of the size and productivity of their stocks can be either reckless leading to overfishing or excessively conservative leading to stunted development of coastal fishing communities. I’ve also observed that some coastal communities learn the proper balance between the risks of overfishing and underfishing in the absence of scientific determination of correct harvest rates by trial and error: first overfishing, then rolling back excessive fishing effort until harvest rates reach the proper balance.”

“The health of our oceans is intricately linked to human well-being. Nearly 10% of the world’s population lives in coastal areas, and about three billion people rely on seafood as their primary source of protein. Additionally, millions depend on the oceans for their livelihoods through activities such as fishing. The interdependence of economic development and marine resource conservation is evident. To balance these needs, coastal communities should be actively involved in implementing measures that benefit their livelihoods. This includes adopting ecosystem-based management strategies, aiming for long-term resource health. Developing eco-tourism initiatives can also stimulate economic growth while minimizing environmental impact. Furthermore, investing in education and alternative livelihood programs can empower communities to diversify their economic activities. Involving communities and stakeholders in the decision-making processes will ensure that conservation initiatives reasonably meet the needs and aspirations of communities. This further ensures that a balance is struck between economic development and the imperative need to conserve marine resources for future generations.”

“Fishing and aquaculture provide an important source of animal protein and commerce for many people around the world and coastal fisheries have played a key role due to the productive nature of coastal areas, as opposed to the open ocean. However, the coastal zone is also a focal point for other human activities such as farming, urbanization, industrial development and recreation, many of which have had detrimental effects on fisheries via habitat loss and pollution.”

DevelopmentAid: How do overfishing, habitat destruction, pollution, and climate change worsen the challenges affecting coastal fisheries and marine conservation efforts?

“The main factors undermining the development of coastal communities and their fisheries and conservation of marine resources are overfishing, habitat destruction, and pollution, with climate change having a much slower and manageable impact. Overfishing is often accompanied with habitat destruction and pollution while its opposite, underfishing, exacerbates challenges by precluding economic development, undermining food security, and delaying technological solutions to the environmental impact of fishing gear. Overfishing induces the destruction of both the physical and biological constitutions of coastal ecosystems and frequently pollutes the environment with lost fishing gears that continue causing mortality in fish and invertebrate stocks after being discarded or lost at sea. Correct harvest rates, as determined from scientific studies of stock assessment, largely solves those issues by producing stable income to fishers and their communities. Stability of income for fishers is in turn the key to reducing habitat destruction and pollution because it causes a proprietary view of marine habitats. Fisheries with stable income see the sea as their plot of land, they see themselves as stewards of their ecosystems, organizing themselves to reduce habitat destruction and pollution, often switching to non-destructive, passive fishing gears that do not change the nature of the physical environment.”

“Overfishing, habitat destruction, pollution, and climate change pose significant and interconnected threats with far-reaching consequences for both coastal communities and the global environment. These threats lead to a decline in species diversity, causing cascading effects on other species and disrupting ecosystem balance. The loss of biodiversity undermines the resilience of marine ecosystems and their ability to provide essential services. Overfishing can deplete fish populations to critical levels, while habitat destruction and pollution degrade marine habitats vital for fish reproduction and growth. The combined impact of these stressors reduces both the quality and quantity of fisheries. Climate change can exacerbate these problems by altering ocean biogeochemistry, increasing sea surface and bottom temperatures, changing primary production, and decreasing oxygen levels in seawater, leading to hypoxia. These factors together endanger the livelihoods of coastal communities, requiring comprehensive and integrated strategies to manage and mitigate their impacts.”

“Despite non-fishing impacts, there has been considerable growth in the number of people fishing, with access to far better technology than at any other time in history. Even small-scale fisheries commonly have access to engines, synthetic fishing gear, electronic fish finding and navigation equipment, and better communications, which have enabled far more fish to be caught per fisherman than in the past. Improved fish handling and transport have helped fuel demand, which can improve returns and incentivize more fishing. The growth in the industrial sector has also been a key factor in driving a major expansion in catches over the past 70 years or so.”

“Climate variability and climate change have negative impacts on fisheries ecosystems and people who derive livelihoods from them. In Zambia, climate is projected to increase by 2°C in mean temperature by 2070, and further reports suggest that rainfall will drop by 8–30% of the normal average. Zambia’s total fish production is just over 100,000 metric tons, fish consumption is low at 5.9 kg/person/year and the industry employs over 300,000 people either directly or indirectly. Fisheries communities are isolated with limited alternative livelihoods, undeveloped marketing systems and poorly serviced with social amenities. Lake Bangweulu Fishery in northern Zambia is part of the Congo River basin but an example of a freshwater ecosystem whose fisheries-based livelihood has been negatively impacted by climate change. A slight increase in temperature (0.3 °C), decrease in rainfall (3%), and water-level loss (1.7m) in the last 30 years has resulted in an effect on fish production and productivity. The interactive effect of reduced rainfall and high evapotranspiration (from increased temperature) has a net effect of reducing the water level and the lake’s total water volume. The reduction in the water level is likely to have negative effects on fish composition, distribution, and yield. Coupled with overfishing due to limited alternative livelihoods, the impacts of climate change have cascading effects on biophysical and socio-economic systems of fisheries-based livelihood. Hence, fishing-based livelihoods are highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. There is a strong recommendation to incorporate climate change in the modeling of fisheries management approaches to ensure sustainable utilization of fisheries resources.”

DevelopmentAid: What are the economic, social, and environmental benefits of investing in sustainable fisheries and marine conservation efforts for coastal communities?

“The most important economic benefits of investing in sustainable fisheries and marine conservation efforts are maximization and stability of fishers’ and their communities’ income from their work. Stability of income leads to long-term planning, access to credit to develop technology and explore new fishing grounds, and organization of fishers to achieve higher bargaining power. The most important social benefits of investing in sustainable fisheries and marine conservation efforts are (1) the generational replacement of fishers’ by their own children, who see their family’s work as similar to that of a farmer, and (2) food security for their country and stability of supply for worldwide markets in general. The most important environmental benefits of investing in sustainable fisheries and marine conservation efforts are the sustainability of ecosystems supporting fish and invertebrate stocks of commercial importance. These ecosystems have other uses in addition to fishing, and those uses are preserved when fisheries are conducted sustainably.”

“There is a multitude of benefits when implementing sustainable practices and conservation measures to govern and manage marine resources and ecosystems:

Economic benefits:

• Sustainable fisheries management: By implementing selective fishing gear and real-time closures, overfishing is mitigated, ensuring long-term economic stability by maintaining fish stocks.
• Marine protected areas (MPAs): Well-managed MPAs balance conservation with sustainable use, boosting fish stocks and catch volumes in many countries while also enhancing tourism, a significant source of revenue for coastal communities.
• Tourism: The attractive marine environment is likely to attract tourists, and this would result in economic growth in a community from activities such as diving and snorkeling.

Social benefits:

• Livelihood support: Initiatives like mangrove restoration not only enhance coastal resilience but also support fisheries, providing employment opportunities and sustaining local economies.
• Community engagement: Involving local communities in the adaptive management of MPAs engenders feelings of ownership and responsibility for sustainable practices.

Environmental benefits:

• Biodiversity and ecosystems conservation: MPAs and sustainable practices protect marine biodiversity, ensuring the health of ecosystems.
• Pollution reduction: Measures such as national bans on single-use plastics contribute to cleaner oceans, benefiting marine life and ecosystems.
• Climate resilience: Investments in green infrastructure and restoration projects enhance coastal resilience, guarding against climate change impacts like storms and rising sea levels.”

DevelopmentAid: How can international cooperation contribute to promoting sustainable fisheries and marine conservation on a larger scale, particularly in areas beyond national jurisdictions?

“The main contribution that international cooperation and global initiatives may have on sustainable coastal fisheries on a larger scale would be in helping to develop the data collection protocols that are necessary to conduct scientific studies of stock assessment in countries that have not yet implemented those protocols. For this purpose, the success of data collection protocols and fisheries management in both developing and developed jurisdictions could be used as a template, scaled down to the reality of coastal fisheries. Areas beyond national jurisdiction are usually the realm of multi-national regional fisheries management organization (RFMO) but there are many sea fishing grounds that are not managed by RFOMs. Those pose difficult problems due to the absence of enforcement but these areas are generally fished by industrial fleets, thus simplifying the problem substantially. I am working in one of those cases, the South-West Atlantic, where hundreds of vessels from fleets of four coastal countries and three far-seas Asian fleets harvest the Argentine shortfin squid, landing nearly 1 million tons in some years. We are working with an ad-hoc structure of invited scientists who are building a regional database to conduct a regional stock assessment. The allocation of sustainable harvest rates among all the fleets is a problem that will be tackled by governments after we achieve our goal of determining the regional-level sustainable harvest rates.”

“International cooperation is essential for promoting sustainable fisheries and marine conservation, particularly in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ), where fishing activities pose the greatest threat to marine biodiversity. The Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs) play a critical role in managing commercial fisheries in these areas, operating within the global framework established by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). As treaty-based bodies, RFMOs aim to ensure the sustainable conservation and management of shared fish stocks and other marine resources through international cooperation. International cooperation is key in the reduction of Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing through tightened monitoring and trade tracking of legal catches. Fisheries bodies are central to this management, coordinating common approaches on various cross-cutting issues globally and regionally, as well as on specific technical matters. In ABNJ, the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity is now supported by the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) Treaty. In a time of challenges such as overexploitation of natural resources, food insecurity, poverty, and climate change, the international community increasingly recognizes the importance of regional and international cross-sectoral collaboration to achieve the objectives set out by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Cooperation is crucial to combat illegal fishing, promote coordinated and scientific conservation action, and ensure the sustainable use of global fisheries resources.”

“In the absence of good fishing management practices, catches simply grow, overfishing takes place, some species become very rare (if not locally extinct) and poverty sets in. Managing fisheries is hard work as it requires tough decisions about who can go fishing, where, and when. Any solution that seems easy (gear bans, area closures, etc.) commonly shifts the problems somewhere else or simply postpones the tough decisions needed to properly control fishing capacity and fishing effort. There is a growing number of well-managed fisheries around the world and a common attribute driving success is severely limiting who can fish. It’s not a popular message but avoiding tough decisions won’t make more fish.”

“Coastal communities play a vital role in our global ecosystem, and their well-being is inextricably linked to the health of their surrounding environment. In order to ensure the long-term viability of these communities, a multifaceted approach is necessary, including the incorporation of blue financing as a means of balancing economic development and the sustainability of marine resources. Some aspects of this multifaceted approach are the leveraging of traditional knowledge practices, as well as social and community engagement, implementing sustainable technologies and infrastructure, and institutional responses from governments, NGOs, and local authorities. These elements work in tandem to promote sustainable practices and protect coastal ecosystems. However, a crucial component in this equation is the role of financial operators, funding agencies, and donors in facilitating blue financing. Blue financing refers to the mobilization of capital and financial resources to support the sustainable use and conservation of marine and coastal resources, as well as the development of a blue economy around fisheries. Financial institutions and investors can play a significant role in channeling funds towards projects and initiatives that align with the principles of sustainability and environmental stewardship. This can include investments in sustainable fisheries management, renewable ocean-based energy, coastal ecosystem restoration, and the development of eco-tourism infrastructure. By integrating blue financing into the overall approach, coastal communities can access the necessary resources to balance their economic development needs with the long-term sustainability of their marine resources. This, in turn, strengthens their ability to adapt to the challenges posed by climate change and maintain the resilience of their ecosystems. This sector remains a mystery and no touch zone for lenders especially in Africa on risk acceptance and securitization. Moreover, the involvement of financial operators, funding agencies, and donors can foster collaboration and knowledge-sharing, further enhancing the effectiveness of the multifaceted approach. This collaborative effort can create a virtuous cycle, where sustainable practices are supported, marine resources are protected, and coastal communities thrive.”

See also: The High Seas Treaty – an ocean of opportunities for the marine world? | Experts’ Opinions

Sustainable Development Goal 14 refers to the conservation and sustainable use of oceans, seas, and marine resources for sustainable development. For experts seeking job opportunities in the Fisheries & Aquaculture sector, DevelopmentAid provides job openings that can make a change. The Individual Professional Membership package offers the possibility to explore all of them, along with tenders and grants for individuals in this field.