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Achieving sustainable and equitable fisheries requires nuanced policies not silver bullets

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 2, page 1334 (2018)Cite this article

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To the Editor — Cabral et al.1 argue that Indonesia’s “aggressive policies” aimed at combatting illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing can recover fish stocks without temporary reductions in domestic catches, a strategy that the authors suggest can be followed by other nations. The methods and insights are interesting, but key issues — namely, the ambiguous use of ‘IUU’, inappropriate extrapolation of context-specific quantitative analyses and unaddressed issues of capacity-enhancing subsidies — must be addressed to prevent adoption of potentially overly simplistic policies with risks for the environment and vulnerable fishers. Indonesia has led highly progressive efforts to curb overfishing, including ratification of international agreements and improvements to national transparency; ending illegal foreign fishing is one such action, but its potential benefits should not be considered in isolation.

First, policy recommendations for IUU fishing should define its varying components and implications, both domestic and foreign: violations of relevant laws and agreements (‘illegal’), unreported or misreported catches where reporting laws exist (‘unreported’), and unsustainable practices even where no specific laws exist (‘unregulated’)2. Unauthorized foreign vessels certainly are illegal, yet many artisanal fishers in Indonesia — and throughout the world — also fall within the IUU designation, mainly because of ineffective or inappropriate reporting mechanisms and legal frameworks3. Strongly enforcing relevant laws is important, yet addressing IUU fishing must avoid criminalizing or further marginalizing subsistence, indigenous and artisanal fishers who may lack the capacity to comply with regulations or the political power to provide input into them4,5.

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References

  1. Cabral, R. B. et al. Nat. Ecol. Evol. 2, 650–658 (2018).

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  2. International Plan of Action to Prevent, Deter, and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, 2001).

  3. Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, 2015).

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  7. Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (United Nations, New York, 2015).

  8. Fisheries Subsidies: Ministerial Decision of 13 December 2017 (World Trade Organization, Buenos Aires, 2017).

  9. Pauly, D. & Budimartono, V. Marine Fisheries Catches of Western, Central and Eastern Indonesia, 1950–2010 (Fisheries Centre, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 2015).

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Acknowledgements

A.M.C.-M. is supported by the UBC-Nippon Nereus Program. U.R.S., T.C.T. and N.T.-A. acknowledge funding support of Ocean Canada. T.C. acknowledges funding support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nippon Foundation Nereus Program, Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

    Andrés M. Cisneros-Montemayor

  2. Fisheries Economics Research Unit, Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

    Tim Cashion, Travis C. Tai, Nicolás Talloni-Álvarez & U. Rashid Sumaila

  3. Oceana, Madrid, Spain

    Dana D. Miller

  4. Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide, Eugene, OR, USA

    Heidi W. Weiskel

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  1. Andrés M. Cisneros-Montemayor
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A.M.C.-M. drafted the original manuscript. All authors contributed to discussion of the topic, edited and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Andrés M. Cisneros-Montemayor.

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Cisneros-Montemayor, A.M., Cashion, T., Miller, D.D. et al. Achieving sustainable and equitable fisheries requires nuanced policies not silver bullets. Nat Ecol Evol 2, 1334 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-018-0633-0

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