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ANALYSIS
PUBLISHED: 5 JUNE 2017 | VOLUME: 1 | ARTICLE NUMBER: 0179
© 2017 Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature. All rights reserved.
NATURE ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION 1, 0179 (2017) | DOI: 10.1038/s41559-017-0179 | www.nature.com/natecolevol
Ending fishery overexploitation by expanding from
local successes to globalized solutions
Yimin Ye* and Nicolas L. Gutierrez*
The United Nations has launched several initiatives to achieve sustainable development, with the most recent being the
Sustainable Development Goals within the 2030 Agenda. In a fisheries context, this initiative sets a target of ending overexploi-
tation by 2020. Despite such efforts, the percentage of overfished fish stocks has oscillated around 30% globally since 2009.
Here, we show that while developed countries are improving the way they manage their fisheries, developing countries face a
worsening situation in terms of overcapacity, production per unit of effort and stock status. This situation is fuelled by economic
interdependencies through international trade and fisheries agreements coupled with limited management and governance
capacities in developing countries. We conclude that the present successes accomplished in some countries and regions are not
sufficient to address the fisheries crisis and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals target globally. We highlight an urgent
need to replicate and readapt successful policies and measures in the light of the realities of specific fisheries, and to implement
transformational changes in fishery management and governance that influence entire sectors of the economy.
Recognizing the significant contribution of fisheries to global
food security, livelihoods and economies, a wide variety of
initiatives aimed at achieving fisheries sustainability have been
put in place1,2. Most recently, the Sustainable Development Goal
14 within the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development3 has set
a target of ending overfishing and restoring depleted fish stocks.
Despite such goals and aspirations, the world’s fisheries have not
yet achieved this target and the percentage of overfished stocks has
remained rather stable around 30% globally since 20094.
Mechanisms that help achieve sustainability of fisheries vary
among countries with different economic development levels,
institutional capacity and social-cultural traditions5,6. Here, we
analyse global fisheries data with the aim of comparing status and
trends between developed and developing countries, and identi-
fying areas that need to be improved to achieve the global target
of restoring overfished stocks by 20203. We also suggest reinforced
policies and instruments needed to move beyond national and
regional successes towards globalized solutions to the world’s fish-
eries crisis.
Divergent fishery patterns
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the
United Nations (UN), globally reported capture fish production
peaked in 1996 (87.5 million tonnes), then decreased until 2006
(81.4 million tonnes) and has remained stable since then (81.5 million
tonnes in 2014). Moreover, the percentage of stocks classified as
overfished has remained stable at around 30% since 20094. However,
such apparent stability masks a divergence in patterns between
developed and developing countries.
Landings. Marine capture fishery production increased linearly in the
developed world from 13 million tonnes in 1950 to 40 million tonnes
in 1988, then decreased dramatically by about 50% to 20 million
tonnes in 2013. In contrast, developing countries saw a continuous
increase in fish production over the whole period of time from 1950
to 2013, but with a much slower growth rate after 1995 (Fig.1a).
Fishing effort. Fishery production patterns in both categories of
country are supported by changes of fishing input. Developed coun-
tries started their expansion in fishing effort from the late 1950s,
accelerated in the 1970s and 1980s, and fell rapidly afterwards from
6,000 million kW days in 1990 to 3,200 million kW days in 20127,
only about half of its peak level (Fig.1b; Supplementary Fig. 2). The
decline in effort was a result of stringent regulations and manage-
ment interventions, as well as translocation of fishing fleets to other
countries8,9, triggered by decreased catch rates (Fig. 1c), high fuel
prices and the collapse of Atlantic cod—the largest fisheries in the
world in 199210. In contrast, developing nations experienced a con-
tinuous increase in fishing effort, particularly after 1980, with no
clear signs of levelling off up to the present time (Fig.1b).
Production rate. Fishing effort is a measure of the amount of inputs
to fisheries, thus production divided by effort gives production per
unit effort (PPUE). Through a combination of improved fishing
technology and targeting under-exploited species, developed and
developing countries reached comparable production rates by 1995.
Over the past 20 years, however, PPUE in developed nations sta-
bilized or slightly recovered, consistent with the decline of fishing
effort in the same period. Conversely, production rates in develop-
ing countries continued to decline and reached 0.002 tonnes per
kW day in 2012, half the level of developed nations (Fig.1c).
PPUE mainly depends on technology and resource abundance.
As technical advances will make fishing more productive through
efficiency gains, it follows that technology will not revert and that
the decrease in production rates shall reflect a decline in fish abun-
dance. Therefore, comparing PPUE between developed and devel-
oping nations highlights a worsening situation for the latter. In
contrast, developed nations have stopped their overall production
rate from falling by recovering overfished stocks and reducing fish-
ing pressure in many jurisdictions (Figs1c and 2).
Stock status. The status of a stock relative to a given reference point
often defines how healthy a population is. If PPUE reflects abundance
Fisheries and Aquaculture Department, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 00153 Rome, Italy. *e-mail: Yimin.Ye@fao.org;
Nicolas.Gutierrez@fao.org
2
© 2017 Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature. All rights reserved. © 2017 Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature. All rights reserved.
NATURE ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION 1, 0179 (2017) | DOI: 10.1038/s41559-017-0179 | www.nature.com/natecolevol
ANALYSIS NATURE ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
trends, it follows that fish resource is lower and declining faster in
developing nations than in the developed world. In fact, estimated
median abundances relative to target levels (B/Btarget) for stocks in a
global stock assessment database11 (Supplementary Tables 1 and 2)
were 41% higher in developed countries with respect to their develop-
ing counterparts. In addition, unassessed fisheries typical of develop-
ing countries are at a lower abundance and declining at a faster rate
than assessed fisheries12,13 (Supplementary Fig. 2; Fig.3).
Fish consumption and trade. Developed nations responded to their
decline in fish production by eating less fish and importing more
of it. Nominal consumption of wild-caught marine fish decreased
from a peak of ca. 50 kg per capita in 1988 to about 23 kg per capita
in 2013 (Fig.1d), a pattern similar to its production. Meanwhile, the
total seafood trade deficit (import minus export) in the developed
world more than doubled in the same period (from 1.7 million
tonnes in 1988 to 4.1 million tonnes in 2007; Fig.1e). Such increases
in net trade flow from developing to developed countries arose from
mutual needs, the former after hard foreign currencies and the latter
compensating for the declined domestic supply of high-quality-
protein fish. This increasing negative trend in developed countries’
trade deficit is accentuated when comparing trade in value (US$)
and further supported by price differences between imported
($4.9 kg−1) and exported ($3.8 kg−1) fish in 2011.
In the developing world, average nominal fish consumption
increased from 2 kg per capita in 1950 to ca. 23 kg per capita in 2013,
still half the amount consumed in the developed countries (Fig.1d).
These contrasting trends between production and consumption in
developing countries arise mostly from their need to generate sur-
plus value from international trade14.
Impact of economic and governance status. Despite the dispro-
portionate importance of natural resources to the economy of devel-
oping countries, preference is often given to immediate economic
development needs over resource conservation. To highlight coun-
tries’ effectiveness in regulating fishing effort, we calculated effort
increments between 1970 and 2013, and depict them with their cor-
responding governance index (GI) scores15. It seems undisputable
that countries with lower GI scores, mostly from the developing
world, have on average greater increases in effort (Fig.3). Although
reducing effort is not always desirable, and changes in fishing pat-
terns are often determined by drivers such as food demand, employ-
ment and social needs, countries with higher GI scores are more
likely to regulate fishing to achieve long-term sustainability. In fact,
by comparing the proportion of overfished stocks by GI scores, we
found that median scores of less than − 0.5 were associated with
42% of overfished stocks and those greater than 1.5 with half that
proportion (22%; Fig.3). Low GIs have also been associated with
high levels of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing16,
and low compliance with the Code of Conduct for Responsible
Fisheries17 (CCRF), highlighting the importance of strengthening
institutional and governance capacities in developing countries.
Exporting the fisheries crisis
Since the 1990s, overexploitation and decline of fishery resources
have been evident, prompting reforms in fishery management. Such
reforms, requiring strong economies to bear short-term losses and
support of appropriate infrastructure and governance, and sufficient
human and financial resources, were deemed successful in many
developed countries. For example, with the passage of the Sustainable
Fisheries Act in 1996 and reauthorization of the Magnuson–Stevens
Fishery Conservation and Management Act in 2007, the USA has
been able to reduce overfishing and actively rebuild overfished stocks18
(Fig.2). Similarly, the European Union (EU) has taken significant steps
to establish quantitative targets through management plans, reducing
fishing pressure on European stocks by about half in the past decade19
(Fig.3). These rebuilding targets and catch restrictions have resulted
in reduced domestic seafood production and self-sufficiency20. To
compensate for the decline in production and maintain high demand,
consumption and/or competitive advantage4 (Fig.1), developed coun-
tries increased imports of fish products through international trade,
particularly from developing countries (Supplementary Fig. 4).
Seafood transfer to developed countries comes not only through
international trade but also through bilateral or private fisheries
agreements and fishing in the high seas. For example, more than
a quarter of the fish caught by European fishing fleets are actually
taken from outside EU waters21. Fisheries agreements with third
countries are not only aimed at increasing seafood supply, but are
also a way to alleviate overcapacity of developed countries’ exclusive
economic zones (EEZs). These agreements often include financial
assistance and support to the implementation of national fisheries
policies in return for providing the other party with fishing rights in
its EEZ22. In many cases, they also subsidize development objectives
Landing (million tonnes)
0
20
40
60 a
0
10
20
0
2
4
6
Eort (billion kW days)
b
0.0
0.5
1.0
1.5
Production rate
c
0
20
40
60
Consumption (kg per person)
d
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
−5
0
5
Trade balance (million tonnes)
Year
Developed
Developing
Developing excluding China
e
−40
0
20
40
Million US$
Figure 1 | Human development inequality and disparity in fishery
patterns. a, Landings of marine fisheries estimated from national
reports (in millions of tonnes). b, Fishing effort of marine fisheries.
c, Production rate of marine fisheries calculated as total landings (million tonnes)
divided by total effort (per kW day). d, Fish consumption (kg per capita)
from marine fisheries. e, Seafood trade deficit in volume (millions
of tonnes; thick lines) and in price (millions of US dollars; thin lines).
Estimates from wild harvest and aquaculture could not be separated.
Details in Supplementary Information.
3
© 2017 Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature. All rights reserved. © 2017 Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature. All rights reserved.
NATURE ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION 1, 0179 (2017) | DOI: 10.1038/s41559-017-0179 | www.nature.com/natecolevol
ANALYSIS
NATURE ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
such as port infrastructure, fleet modernization and processing
facilities, ultimately increasing fishing capacity22 (Fig.1b).
High seafood demand for exports and increasing prices (Fig.1e)
also incentivize the expansion of fishing effort and IUU fishing17,23.
Coupled with weak institutions and governance, limited human and
financial resources, and low capacity of management and enforce-
ment, developing nations often end up with expanded fishing capac-
ity and overfished resources (Fig.1b; Supplementary Fig. 3). This
situation is particularly critical as developing countries are respon-
sible for 88% of fishing effort and 73% of marine capture landings4.
Globalized solutions
A global scale effort to achieve sustainability is justified by the rela-
tive indivisibility of marine ecosystems and roaming of long-distance
fleets, the common nature and dynamics of fishery resources, and
the intertwined connection between countries through interna-
tional trade and bilateral fishing agreements. To change the current
disparity between developed and developing countries, and make
progress towards the zero-overfishing target set by the Sustainable
Development Goals3, the global community needs to work on mul-
tiple dimensions simultaneously in a comprehensive and cohesive
approach. In particular, we propose the areas described in the next
three subsections for improvements.
Implement an effective global partnership to share management
knowledge and enhance institutional and governance capaci-
ties of developing countries. Achieving sustainable fisheries is
a common goal for all countries, yet the capacity to achieve var-
ies greatly among them. The current model common in developed
states—relying on complex stock assessment as a basis for establish-
ing fishing quotas—is economically costly, technically demanding
and operationally difficult5. Therefore, replicating such a model
may be ineffective and counterproductive because the necessary
facilities and mechanisms are unattainable for least developed econ-
omies. Simpler, easy-to-implement indicator-based management
plans resting on a participative approach are needed for developing
nations. In addition, seafood-importing nations are to some extent
externalizing part of their management costs by importing fish from,
and exporting fishing effort to, other countries. Therefore, reciprocal
mechanisms to enhance institutional, management and governance
capacities through delivering and financing training, technology
transfer and equipment to least developed countries are justified and
should be prioritized and implemented. This level-the-field strategy
will allow developing countries to improve their management and
governance capacity to address overfishing in their EEZ.
Adjust fishing capacity to sustainable levels through policy and
regulations, including judicious use of subsidies and eradication
of IUU fishing. Runaway increases in fishing capacity in developing
countries, facilitated by government policies favourable to fishing,
including subsidies for vessel construction or modernization and fuel
tax concessions, have compromised beneficial adjustment towards
sustainability23. Therefore, government funds should be used, in line
with Target 14.6 (ref. 3), as temporary support to help fishers transi-
tion to sustainable exploitation (for example, the Australian govern-
ment supported the reduction of fishing vessels by about 40% in the
Northern Prawn Fishery in 200624). In particular, financial support
towards sectorial development should aim at sustaining the transi-
tion from short-term development to long-term sustainability by
keeping fishing effort at bay. Bottom-up commitments, as seen in
climate change negotiations, where countries voluntarily declare an
amount of harmful subsidies to be eliminated within a certain period,
should be encouraged. Similarly, agreements allowing foreign access
to fish resources should be assessed for their sustainability, and cur-
rent efforts to eradicate IUU fishing as requested by Target 14.4 (for
example, through implementation of key international obligations
and guidelines25,26) should be enhanced.
Establish a seafood trading system that promotes resource sus-
tainability. Thirty-seven percent of seafood production is being
traded internationally4. Therefore, trade rules and restrictions can
drive seafood demand and supply, and ultimately influence exploi-
tation and conservation of fishery resources beyond what is achiev-
able within national jurisdictions. These external instruments
should be used to incentivize sustainable fisheries where interna-
tional trade is greatly targeted for economic benefits. Specific arti-
cles in the World Trade Organization’s rules that are both suitable
to the unique characteristics of fisheries and cost-efficient enough
to ensure their practical implementation should be encouraged.
Restraining import from overfished stocks should become the norm,
as prompted by Article XX of the General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trade’s ‘measures relating to the conservation of exhaustible natural
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
0
10
20
30
40
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
F
Overfished stocks (%)
Year
% overfished (NOAA)
F (ICES)
Figure 2 | Fishery trends in the USA and Europe. Fishing mortality (F)
for European fisheries managed under the International Council for the
Exploration of the Sea (ICES) and stock status for US fisheries managed
under the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA). Data in Supplementary Information.
–2
2
6
10
0.0
0.3
0.5
0.8
1.0
–1.75 –1.25 –0.75 –0.25 0.25 0.75 1.25 1.75 2.25
Change in fishing eort (million kW days)
Stock status
GI
Eort changeFully/under fished Overfished
Figure 3 | Linking fishery patterns to governance. Relationship between GI
scores of countries and their capacity to restrict fishing effort (as change
in efforts from 1970 to 2013; blue line) and to manage their fish stocks
sustainably (as percentage of stocks not overexploited13; bars). Given that
some stocks are targeted by several countries with different GI scores, the
proportion of overexploited stocks for the most extreme GI median interval
(− 1.75) is missing. ANOVA: F(6,275)= 2.44, P= 0.026. Data and details in
Supplementary Information.
4
© 2017 Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature. All rights reserved. © 2017 Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature. All rights reserved.
NATURE ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION 1, 0179 (2017) | DOI: 10.1038/s41559-017-0179 | www.nature.com/natecolevol
ANALYSIS NATURE ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
resources’. Market-based approaches such as certification and eco-
labelling, which have proved successful in rewarding sustainable
fisheries, should be encouraged. However, complexities and costs
of certification should be minimized to make these approaches
scalable to developing world fisheries, where incentives to improve
management practices are mostly needed27.
A total of 167 parties have ratified the UN Convention on the
Law of the Sea, in which the basic benchmarks for the sustainabil-
ity of fisheries are set. The UN Fish Stocks Agreement, the FAO
CCRF and the International Plan of Actions on IUU, specifying and
strengthening these requirements, have been in place for decades
without much progress. Most recently, Sustainable Development
Goal 14.4 has been adopted with the specific objective of achieving
zero overfishing3. Achieving this requires a strong political will and
stable resource support, which will be particularly challenging in the
context of developing countries. To ensure its success, a global, bind-
ing mechanism is needed to accelerate parties’ fulfilment of their
obligations to carry out all legislative and administrative actions
within their domestic legal order. In addition, a trust fund should
be established to support the least developed countries in their tran-
sition to sustainable fisheries. A transparent tracking system needs
to be established to promote the implementation of legally binding
instruments, and a name-and-encourage approach be adopted for
non-binding instruments. Finally, measurable goals, such as the per-
centage of reduction in fleet capacity and accountability systems that
are incorporated into management plans, should replace immeasur-
able statements of intent.
We argue that to meet the target of sustainable fisheries set by the
2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, we need to move beyond
national and regional success in fisheries and adopt a systems-
thinking approach to implementation. A growing interconnection
of economies urgently calls for greater international cooperation
aimed at reconciling national policies with the globalized nature of
fisheries. Although these recommendations are focused on sustain-
able exploitation of fisheries, a more holistic approach that includes
reducing marine pollution, minimizing ocean acidification and
protecting ecosystems as a whole is needed to secure sustainable
use of the oceans. Such a planetary-bounded approach will require
aligning benefits of individual actors with the collective gain of the
overall system28. Replicating and readapting successful policies (for
example, in management interventions) and implementing trans-
formational changes (that is, lasting policies that influence entire
sectors of the economy) are needed if we are truly committed to
sustainable exploitation of global fishery resources.
Methods
Data sources. e data used for these analyses came from a number of publicly
available or published databases, including the 2015 FAO sheries production and
trade database29, the World Bank governance database, the EU sheries database30,
the RAM Legacy Stock Assessment Database11 and the database from ref. 12.
Country human development classification. Countries were divided into two
groups: developed and developing, as classified by the UN Statistics Division.
There is no established convention for the designation of ‘developed’ and
‘developing’ countries or areas in the UN system31. The designations ‘developed’
and ‘developing’ are intended for statistical convenience and do not necessarily
express a judgement about the stage reached by a particular country or area in
the development process. This study simply follows the UN classification for
convenience. It should also be noted that there are large variations within each
group in terms of either economic development or fishery contribution to a
nation’s gross domestic product. Therefore, one should not consider the overall
situation of a group to be the same as a specific country of the group.
Landings. Landings data were drawn from the latest 2015 release of the FAO
fishery capture production database29. Landing data and other fishery statistics
are generally submitted to the FAO by member states. Statistics made available by
national authorities are complemented or replaced if better data from other origins
are available32 (Supplementary Information). For example, the data received from
national offices were replaced with those validated by regional fishery bodies
(RFBs), following recommendation to its members by the 18th session of the
Coordinating Working Party on Fishery Statistics in 1999. This is regarded as the
most reliable data held by the RFBs with assessment responsibility for a given stock,
which are supposed to be the ‘best scientific estimate’. Foreign catches reported in
bulletins produced by northwest African countries (such as Guinea-Bissau
and Mauritania) are checked against data submitted to the FAO by distant
waters fishing nations (DWFNs) operating in the area, and catches identified as
unreported by DWFNs are added into the FAO database as flag state’s landings.
Fishing effort. Data on fishing fleets, vessel specifics and fishing times spent at sea
are very rare, particularly at global level. There has been only one previous study33
that attempted to estimate global fishing effort, but this study lacked data for most
countries post 1995, limiting its ability to predict recent trends. Since then, the
FAO has been able to create a relatively comprehensive database of the number
of fishing vessels from most countries of the world. To estimate global fishing
capacity and effort, a number of data sources were used and statistical models were
developed to impute for missing years or countries in some typical years7. This
study represents major improvements to the previous study mentioned33 by using
a more complete global fleet database (complete to 2012 for many countries) and
by using bootstrapping techniques that eliminate many assumptions and allow
estimates of uncertainty. The effort data in this paper are extracted from ref. 7
(Supplementary Information).
Production rates. Production rates are calculated by dividing the total wild
capture fishery production of a country derived from the FAO database
by its total fishing effort estimated in ref. 7. We use the term ‘production’ instead
of ‘catch’ so as not to confuse ‘production rates’ in a national fishing sector
with ‘catch rates’ usually referring to single stock’s abundance indices. The
estimates of PPUE represent a measure of the production efficiency of fisheries in
a country. It must be noted that both fishery production and fishing effort within
countries are aggregated across species, fisheries and areas. Therefore, PPUE may
be better used as an indication that reflects the general trend of abundance. Such a
relationship between PPUE and abundance is not likely to be linear and therefore
its decline may not be proportional to the change in abundance
of fishery resources.
Production rates within a certain area are influenced by two major factors
when the level of fishing effort is fixed: resource abundance (hence natural
fluctuations and management effectiveness) and technology. Technology includes
all factors that can change the efficiency of fishing such as gear design, fish
detection techniques, navigation equipment, catch handling facilities and human
experience. With the advance of science and technology, and accumulation
of human experience, technology will increase fishing efficiency over time34.
Therefore, in the absence of management constraints limiting ‘total allowable
effort’ below the nominal effort of the total fleet, the decline in PPUE should
reflect the change in fishery resources in a particular area (excluding macro
environmental factors such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and El Niño/La
Niña); although such a relationship is not likely to be proportional, such as the one
between catch per unit of effort (CPUE) and stock abundance in single species
stock assessment theory.
When calculating PPUE, nominal fishing effort was used for simplicity,
that is, no increase in fishing efficiency derived from new technology, equipment
and add-ons on vessels was explicitly taken into account. Existing studies
show such increases could be up to 2.6% a year35,36. Efficiency creep is an
undeniable fact in fisheries, but its estimation, particularly at global level,
is troublesome. Therefore, we decided to use nominal effort, which will make
the decline trend in PPUE flatter.
Stock status. Although estimates of stock status based on biomass are not available
for most fisheries, there have been several attempts to estimate the proportion
of overexploited stocks globally. To understand how stock status differs between
developed and developing countries, we used information from three available
databases and peer-reviewed papers11–13. Although, these databases are not
comparable (and therefore difficult to harmonize), together they provide a reliable
assessment of differences in stock health from developed and developing countries
(details in Supplementary Information).
Fish consumption. Fish consumption in this study was calculated by dividing
the total fish available (produced domestically from marine capture fisheries
plus import minus export) by human population of a country—assuming a
homogeneous consumption over the entire country, despite knowledge that fish
consumption tends to be much higher around aquatic systems (coastal areas).
The average consumption of a group of countries is a mean weighted by human
populations. Fish consumption used in this study may differ from the real amount
of fish consumed per person. This calculation was adopted because (1) it is simple
and can be applied uniformly to every country; and (2) it is more reasonable in this
kind of analysis, as fish not used directly for human consumption can also have an
impact on fish consumption through fish-related activities—for example, certain
forage fish used for aquaculture feeds.
Seafood trade. Seafood trade data were extracted from the FAO database on
commodities and trade of fish and fishery products29. Net import was calculated
as production+ import− export− re-export. There are no data available at the
5
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NATURE ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION 1, 0179 (2017) | DOI: 10.1038/s41559-017-0179 | www.nature.com/natecolevol
ANALYSIS
NATURE ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
moment that can be used to separate capture fishery from aquaculture products
in international trade. However, it was estimated that more than 50% of the USA’s
imports (which, in fact, is the top seafood importer in the world) came from
capture fisheries37.
Additional trade information was obtained from the International Trade
Centre (ITC) database38 based on the UN Comtrade statistics by commodity. For
this analysis, selected data included imports, exports and trade balance in US$ for
all seafood products (category 03: fish and crustaceans, molluscs, and other aquatic
invertebrates). The database covers the period 2001–2014 and identifies partner
countries, allowing filtering by developing market economies.
To understand the origin of imports by developed countries and their
changes with time, we selected the top ten seafood importing countries from the
ITC database38. We observed that their proportion of imports from developing
economies ranged from almost 20% in Germany to more than 80% in the USA
in 2014 (Supplementary Fig. 4a). In addition, we found that seven of these
ten countries showed an increase in the proportion of seafood imported from
developing countries (from less than 1% increase in Japan to almost 12% increase
in Korea) from 2001 to 2014. Conversely, Germany, the UK and France showed
a slight decrease in seafood imported from developing countries in the same
period. Lastly, on average, those ten top seafood importing countries increased
their imports from developing countries by 4% for the period 2001–2014
(Supplementary Fig. 4b). It is important to note that the international trade
database does not allow discrimination of products coming from wild harvest from
those coming from aquaculture.
Governance. Governance consists of the traditions and institutions by
which authority in a country is exercised. This includes the process by which
governments and their institutions are selected, monitored, adapted and replaced;
the capacity of the government to effectively formulate and implement sound
policies; and the respect of citizens and the state for the institutions that govern
economic and social interactions among them.
The governance defined by the World Bank consists of six dimensions15:
voice and accountability, political stability and absence of violence, government
effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, and control of corruption. Following
the methodology in ref. 17, our study used an aggregate GI by averaging the six
indicators. Figure3 shows GI scores aggregated by intervals of 0.5, highlighting
an increase in effort control (that is, lower changes in fishing effort from 1970 to
2013) with higher GI scores. The figure also shows a decrease in the proportion
of overexploited stocks13 as the GI scores increase, therefore highlighting better
management and governance of fisheries by countries with better governance
indices. The difference between the means of GI median bins tested statistically
significant with a one-way ANOVA test (Supplementary Table 3).
Data availability. Data on global landings and seafood trade are available at
http://www.fao.org/, the governance indices at http://data.worldbank.org/data-
catalog/worldwide-governance-indicators and the RAM Legacy Stock Assessment
Database at http://depts.washington.edu/ramlegac/. The global fishing effort data
can be obtained by contacting the authors.
Received 7 March 2017; accepted 2 May 2017;
published 5 June 2017
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Acknowledgements
We thank F. Carocci for assistance in extracting data from the FAO databases, and
S. Garcia and T. A. Branch for their review and valuable comments on an earlier draft of
the manuscript.
Author contributions
Y.Y. and N.L.G. designed the study, developed the methodology, collected the data,
performed the analysis and wrote the manuscript.
Additional information
Supplementary information is available for this paper.
Reprints and permissions information is available at www.nature.com/reprints.
Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to Y.Y. or N.L.G.
How to cite this article: Ye, Y. & Gutierrez, N. L. Ending fishery overexploitation
by expanding from local successes to globalized solutions. Nat. Ecol. Evol.
1, 0179 (2017).
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Competing interests
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
