Global Fisheries Responses to Culture, Policy and COVID-19 from 2017 to 2020

Abstract

Global Fishing Watch (GFW) provides global open-source data collected via automated monitoring of vessels to help with sustainable management of fisheries. Limited previous global fishing effort analyses, based on Automatic Identification System (AIS) data (2017–2020), suggest economic and environmental factors have less influence on fisheries than cultural and political events, such as holidays and closures, respectively. As such, restrictions from COVID-19 during 2020 provided an unprecedented opportunity to explore added impacts from COVID-19 restrictions on fishing effort. We analyzed global fishing effort and fishing gear changes (2017–2019) for policy and cultural impacts, and then compared impacts of COVID-19 lockdowns across several countries (i.e., China, Spain, the US, and Japan) in 2020. Our findings showed global fishing effort increased from 2017 to 2019 but decreased by 5.2% in 2020. We found policy had a greater impact on monthly global fishing effort than culture, with Chinese longlines decreasing annually. During the lockdown in 2020, trawling activities dropped sharply, particularly in the coastal areas of China and Spain. Although Japan did not implement an official lockdown, its fishing effort in the coastal areas also decreased sharply. In contrast, fishing in the Gulf of Mexico, not subject to lockdown, reduced its scope of fishing activities, but fishing effort was higher. Our study demonstrates, by including the dimensions of policy and culture in fisheries, that large data may materially assist decision-makers to understand factors influencing fisheries’ efforts, and encourage further marine interdisciplinary research. We recommend the lack of data for small-scale Southeast Asian fisheries be addressed to enable future studies of fishing drivers and impacts in this region.

Comparative analysis of first and second stage data envelopment approaches: Performance of marine capture fisheries in the European Union

“…Fishing pressure inevitably declined during the Covid‐19 lockdown (Kemp et al, 2020), whereas harvest remained high for many member states (STECF, 2021, 2022). Results of the present study showed that harvest and economic inefficiency increased for many European Union member states, similar to fisheries elsewhere in the world (He et al, 2021). Before the outbreak (2017–2019) and followed by 2020, when lockdowns for the outbreak began, fishing efforts increased and concentrated in European Union territorial waters, similar to areas of the Pacific Ocean and Chinese high seas, with an apparent dominance by trawlers and long‐liners (He et al, 2021).…”

“…Results of the present study showed that harvest and economic inefficiency increased for many European Union member states, similar to fisheries elsewhere in the world (He et al, 2021). Before the outbreak (2017–2019) and followed by 2020, when lockdowns for the outbreak began, fishing efforts increased and concentrated in European Union territorial waters, similar to areas of the Pacific Ocean and Chinese high seas, with an apparent dominance by trawlers and long‐liners (He et al, 2021). The European Union financial aid during the Covid‐19 lockdown decreased vulnerability and increased resilience of the European Union fisheries (Le Brenne et al, 2021) in addition to stable harvest.…”

‘Destructive fishing’—A ubiquitously used but vague term? Usage and impacts across academic research, media and policy

“… ‘Fishing gears’ ordered by classification in (He et al, 2021). ‘Auxiliary devices’ and ‘Other fishing practices’ ordered alphabetically.…”

“…‘trash fishing’). Where references to practices were sufficiently detailed in the reference to specific gears and/or auxiliary devices, we used the classification system in He et al (2021), which is an objective, multi‐lingual lexicon of fishing technology developed by FAO gear technologists. From our records, we identified 40 separate fishing practices associated with the term ‘destructive fishing’ across the three content types; 24 identifiable fishing gears, five auxiliary fishing devices and 11 other fishing practices/fishing‐associated behaviours.…”

“Destructive fishing” – a ubiquitously used but vague term? Usage and impacts across academic research, media, and policy

“…“trash fishing”). Where references to practices were sufficiently detailed in the reference to specific gears and/or auxiliary devices, we used the classification system in (He et al, 2021), which is an objective, multi-lingual lexicon of fishing technology developed by FAO gear technologists. From our records, we identified 40 separate fishing practices associated with the term “destructive fishing” across the three content types; 24 identifiable fishing gears, five auxiliary fishing devices and 11 other fishing practices/fishing associated behaviours.…”