For me the real crisis is not in the fishery (or at least into the biological sense), the real desaster of overfishing are ourselves...the lack of scientific base knowledge translated into real fishery's law. I have (as a Chilean my heart it's ivided in two) a positive story, the National fishery law has an apointment thanks to the research of Juan Carlos Castilla (you can see his publication elsewere) where the local fishermen have been empowered by technicians/Scientific people and determined a way to administrate (self administration form the artisanal fisheries' point of view) the so calles MEABRs (Management and Exploitation Areas for Benthic Resources). I attach here a good paper. By the other way into the pelagic realm, our politicians have just apporved a law where the total captures (of course not determined, just supported by the scientific commite) are assigned for more than 20 years to a (7 families) businessman, and are automatically renuewed after the period.

Just in a personal opinion this reflect the economic interests that are behind many negative interactions between humanity and nature. Economy move people, people move politicians, and they look for power....again the people, the great power of the commons is crucial...(risky)

So in our case, the tale has a Pelagic "black" and a Coastal "Ligh" scenarios...

The 'revolutionary' Chilean case of marine tenure is fascinating in several ways (thanks, Antonio, for attaching the excellent Gelcich et al PNAS paper!). High-level political will to stop the mismanagement of coastal marine resources, the recognition that marine stocks were on the way to collapse, the full cooperation of fishermen as stakeholders, their implication in experimental trials with fishery scientists, altogether proved decisive in implementing brand-new fishery governance systems in Chile's waters.

In that case- which will be important to follow in coming years- the pre-existing communication network among artisanal fishermen and the development of trust with fishery scientists were determinant.

Do we have examples from other parts of the world as to the critical conditions necessary for effective change in national fishery governance systems?

Interesting you should ask this. I've read three books on the subject, most recently Song for the Blue Ocean: Encounters Along the World's Coasts and Beneath the Seas

by Carl Safina

and above all (and a much more recent text)

Silent Seas - The Fish Race to the Bottom

by Isabella Lövin

Makes for sad, scary, and sobering reading .....

These are good introductions to the subject. Other 'must read' for interested souls:

• J.A. Anticamara, R Watson, A Gelchu, D Pauly. 2011. Global fishing effort (1950– 2010): trends, gaps, and implications. Fisheries Research 107: 131-136.

• C. W. Clark. 2006. The Worldwide Crisis in Fisheries. Cambridge University Press.

• R. Myers and B. Worm. 2003. Rapid worldwide depletion of predatory fish communities. Nature 423: 280-283.

• C. Mullon, P. Freon, Ph. Cury. 2005. The dynamics of collapse in world fisheries. Fish and Fisheries 6: 111-120.

• D. Pauly, M. L. Palomares. 2005. Fishing down marine food webs: it is far more pervasive than we thought. Bull. Marine Science 76: 197-212.

Thank you for the information about Chile Antonio and thank you for the paper list Frederic. In my opinion many problems of overfishing (especially deep sea trawling) will solve themselves if there is enough political pressure to stop subsidies.

I am optimistic and see some light at the end of the tunnel. Due to the new fishing laws in the US many stocks there seem to increase again, today the good Fishery Reform law got through the EU-parliament, new technologies like the Automatic Identification System (AIS) enable us to observe from our desktop fishing boats even at high seas and there are many reports from MPAs all over the world that marine Life will replenish when it is left alone.

So I really hope that now, after 60+ years of mismanagement and 21 years after the Rio agreement, things will change.

And something else what gives me a little hope:

I work mainly in the North Sea and Baltic Sea area. These water bodies (same as your Mediterranean Sea, Frederic) were hit so bad: Overfished since centuries, 100 years of benthic trawling, dynamite and driftnet fishing, massive eutrophication, coastal degradation due to human infrastructure, garbage dump for chemicals, radioactive waste, weapons and plastic and still there is life and it is beautiful.

I would like to share your cautious optimism, Philipp, but trawling in EU deep waters continues, despite regulations and despite evidence of massive biological and sediment destruction. There should be better surveillance (via AIS systems and the like) with high penalties for violators. In addition it seems more than time to aggregate in a national data base, under national authorities, the tracks of trawlers on the sea bed under national jurisdiction. To my knowledge only Iceland does that.

EU fisheries is the third largest in the world. Recently, the Fisheries Committee of the EU parliament voted to radically reform its fisheries management policies, for the better. It took18 months of negotiation to put in place new measures that would effectively end overfishing and greatly improve the way the EU manages its fisheries.

This marks a true turning point for the EU, one of the poorest managed, most over-fished regions in the world. In recent years, the majority of its scientifically-assessed fisheries have been found to be over-exploited, which is no surprise given that it is also home to a heavily subsidized and extremely powerful fishing industry that is estimated to be two to three times larger than what sustainable fishing limits would allow.

Among the new reforms to the law that governs fisheries in the EU, what is known as the Common Fisheries Policy, Oceana is especially excited about the following changes:

*An obligation to set catch limits above maximum sustainable yield levels by 2015, in order for stocks to recover by 2020

*A clear ban on discards with proceeds from the landing of unwanted catches reverted to a fund to be used for data collection and control

*An obligation for the fishing industry to contribute to the costs of data collection and control

*A funding freeze to fishers that do not comply with fishing rules, as well as a funding freeze to Member States that do not achieve the objectives set in EU fishing legislation

*An obligation to adjust fishing capacity to reflect the new catch limits and a thorough assessment of the fishing capacity of Member States

*The creation of a network of fish stock recovery areas

Executive Director of Oceana in Europe Xavier Pastor was exultant after the vote, saying:

“Today, we, EU citizens, have broken the EU governments’ tradition of over-exploiting fisheries resources and destroying our natural marine heritage in favour of short-term interests that have put the industry in decline. Today, we have a first hopeful look towards a future where fish stocks are sustainably managed and coastal communities’ livelihoods are guaranteed by plentiful seas.”

Oceana has been fighting for these changes for years and we are now nearing the finish line. The new reforms have now been voted into law by the EU Parliament.

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OCEANA, by P.M. Brannen, Dec 18, 2012

http://oceana.org/en/category/blog-free-tags/overfishing

I completely agree with you Frederic, deep sea trawling is the most destructive fishery there is. (ok, dynamite fishing in coral reefs comes pretty close). Every single deep-water benthic trawl on a seamount destroys living structures which grew in hundreds of years and they will never recover in human timescales.

But yesterday was a good, optimistic & historic day. The overwhelming majority (4:1) in the EU-Parliament vote for the CFP-Reform. Issam stated some of the major changes in EU-fisheries which can happen now. These new regulations include (to my knowledge) the ban of all deep water trawling and gill netting below 1000m depth and a heavy cut in subsidies. It was great to see what E-NGOs can achieve when working together. I believe the people and (politicians) are waking up and start to understand how wasteful we handle our marine resources which belong to all of us, and they start to care about it. But again, I might be a bit to optimistic. In March/June the Fishery minister will negotiate and conclude the CFP-Reform and many changes can happen then when we are not loud enough.

Though the trawler operators hoodwink the rules & regulations,in North Western India,a major fish landing center with a tenable capacity to trawl for 800 boats,had increased to 5 times the capacity,with the result,the operations became uneconomic & the operators by themselves allowed one in four to operate at a time by turns.This a case of self discipline as the authorities had no hand in implementing this.Another important out come is that some of the trawlers have started gill netting & have started on better economics & with the result,have started netting big sized fishes. This has resulted in lower energy use as compared to trawlers.

The crisis is multi-fold. It is not only that global marine fisheries landings have been stagnanting since lang, and as such fisheries products have become expensive for consumers.

Also the fishermen suffer as declining catches mean a decline in their livelihoods. Especially small-scale fisherpeople are suffering, when they do not find a way out of fishing, getting employment in other sectors.

In coastal fisheries a solution could be to establish more Marine Protected Areas that allow fish stocks to replenish when fishing pressures reduce. This has also positive impacts on neigbouring areas where fish density also increases again.

Stakeholders in Fisheries sector and the government should truly ensure that policies and laws protecting waterbodies are followed up to the later...punitive measures should be strictly adhered....I think this will ensure 97% compliance