Rethinking fisheries sustainability toward pesco-ecology

In a world subject to the multiple consequences of global change, fishing will continue to play a key role in the global food system, provided that we fundamentally rethink the sustainability of marine fisheries. Today, in all major fisheries-related international agreements and organizations, ending overfishing and managing fish populations so that they produce maximum sustainable yield (MSY) is recognized as the standard for sustainable fishing. However, this approach does not explicitly take into account the interactions between species, especially the role played by the targeted species in the functioning and resilience of the marine ecosystems, the impacts on habitat or on sensitive species, and the effects of the rapidly changing environment. The widespread adoption of this productivist vision of maximizing long-term catches of targeted species has led to very significant impacts on all exploited marine populations (i.e. almost all fish species as well as large mollusks and crustaceans), reducing their abundance to one third of their historical levels. This is clearly not sustainable at the ecosystem scale.

This obsolete vision is the source of a major erosion of marine biodiversity and proves incapable of continually adapting to the rapid effects of global change. Here, we propose a new vision termed ‘pesco-ecology’ that is akin to agroecology of the sea. This new vision extends and renews the ecosystem approach to fisheries advocated since 1995 by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) (and in reality, little implemented). It is based on two key principles. The first is to constantly seek the minimization of all ecological impacts linked to each unit of fish caught, while actively adapting to the effects of global change. This principle relies on mobilizing all the available scientific knowledge, innovation processes, regulatory instruments and the intelligence of the actors, to reduce to a minimum the fishing impacts on the exploited resources, on other species, on habitats, and more generally on the structure, functioning and resilience of the underlying ecosystem.

The second principle consists of constantly seeking to maximize the economic, social and societal utility of each unit of fish caught. It is Nature that produces, not fishing companies. We must therefore maximize the economic wealth, jobs, social, societal or cultural benefits that can be created from this natural production, and we must benefit the greatest number of people. Fishing must not only produce food; it must contribute to territorial planning and the well-being of coastal communities.

Using a selection of some case studies, the presentation will show how these general principles and more generally pesco-ecology can be applied. In particular, we will show the benefits that could be expected from: the redefinition of more precautionary management standards to set fishing quotas; the massive increase in mesh sizes and minimum landing sizes; the progressive phasing-out of trawl fisheries in favor of passive gear; spatial management reserving coastal areas for small-scale fisheries; and the development of fleet-based management using incentive sharing of fishing quotas to promote good environmental and social practices.