Global momentum is building on ecosystem-based fisheries management for forage fish, but The Pew Charitable Trusts calls on decision-makers to go further and faster, as demand from the aquaculture industry grows.
Protecting forage fish - the small, wild fish at the centre of marine food webs - just got even more necessary. As well as regulating ocean biodiversity, these species - anchovetas, herrings, sardines, sandeels, saurys, sardinellas - also prop up the global aquaculture trade and, as this trade grows in importance, the demand for feed grows along with it.
With the publication of the latest FAO State of World Fisheries & Aquaculture Report, we see aquaculture outstripping wild capture as a source of seafood production for the first time. This booming industry takes ~20% of those wild catches it is now outproducing and feeds them to salmon, seabreams and other farmed species. Although that demand has stayed proportionally stable in recent years, a fifth of a growing share of the pie means more forage fish demand in terms of amount of supply.
While this growth underscores the need for robust management of forage fisheries, there's an additional problem. The tools we traditionally use to regulate fisheries need adapting for forage fish. They're unpredictable species and might become more unpredictable as the ocean temperatures change; if we set catch limits wrong, we can end up depriving other species of prey; in short, we need a different approach, an ecosystem approach.
Ecosystem-based fisheries management (or #EBFM) means putting nature at the centre of decision-making, adapting traditional fisheries objectives and rules to better prioritise ecosystem health (rather than just maximising catches). Fisheries managers can and should implement #EBFM for forage fish and the rapidly changing context of seafood production hastens the need for significant acceleration towards that goal.
