ALBERT

Description: Several factors influence catches and the sustainability of fisheries, and such factors might be different depending on the scale on which fisheries work. We investigated the existence of possible subdivisions within small-scale fisheries (SSF) themselves, regarding their economic performance and relative social and environmental impacts to understand which categories of these two types of fleets are best positioned to support sustainability. By doing so, we investigated if it is a good strategy for SSF to aim to grow towards larger scales. We obtained economic and ecological data from landing samplings and information on technological efficiency of this fleet, using a northeastern Brazilian state as a case study. We defined a cut-off point to separate the SSF into two categories of boats, according to their size and gear. We compared their cpue and the factors affecting it within each category; we also compared economic (number of boats, number of landings, jobs, gears, catch, travel time and total time of the fishery, revenues, costs, profits, revenue per unit of effort, and profit per unit of effort) and ecological factors (vulnerability of species caught) between the two categories. We found that small boats spent less time fishing and employed comparatively more people per landed value and catch. The cpue and profits of small boats were also higher. Both large and small boats exploit species with the same overall vulnerability. Therefore, being smaller, even within the SSF category, seems to be a more advantageous social and economic strategy for guaranteeing higher catches and more employment opportunities per catch. These findings need to be taken into account when defining new policies, such as the distribution of subsidies that support or not the sustainable use of fishery resources.

Description: Quantitative scenarios are coming of age as a tool for evaluating the impact of future socioeconomic development pathways on biodiversity and ecosystem services. We analyze global terrestrial, freshwater, and marine biodiversity scenarios using a range of measures including extinctions, changes in species abundance, habitat loss, and distribution shifts, as well as comparing model projections to observations. Scenarios consistently indicate that biodiversity will continue to decline over the 21st century. However, the range of projected changes is much broader than most studies suggest, partly because there are major opportunities to intervene through better policies, but also because of large uncertainties in projections.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Pereira, Henrique M -- Leadley, Paul W -- Proenca, Vania -- Alkemade, Rob -- Scharlemann, Jorn P W -- Fernandez-Manjarres, Juan F -- Araujo, Miguel B -- Balvanera, Patricia -- Biggs, Reinette -- Cheung, William W L -- Chini, Louise -- Cooper, H David -- Gilman, Eric L -- Guenette, Sylvie -- Hurtt, George C -- Huntington, Henry P -- Mace, Georgina M -- Oberdorff, Thierry -- Revenga, Carmen -- Rodrigues, Patricia -- Scholes, Robert J -- Sumaila, Ussif Rashid -- Walpole, Matt -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2010 Dec 10;330(6010):1496-501. doi: 10.1126/science.1196624. Epub 2010 Oct 26.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Centro de Biologia Ambiental, Faculdade de Ciencias da Universidade de Lisboa, 1749-016 Lisboa, Portugal. hpereira@fc.ul.pt〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20978282" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: 〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Sumaila, U Rashid -- England -- Nature. 2012 Jan 18;481(7381):265. doi: 10.1038/481265c.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22258595" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: The ocean plays a critical role in supporting human well-being, from providing food, livelihoods and recreational opportunities to regulating the global climate. Sustainable management aimed at maintaining the flow of a broad range of benefits from the ocean requires a comprehensive and quantitative method to measure and monitor the health of coupled human-ocean systems. We created an index comprising ten diverse public goals for a healthy coupled human-ocean system and calculated the index for every coastal country. Globally, the overall index score was 60 out of 100 (range 36-86), with developed countries generally performing better than developing countries, but with notable exceptions. Only 5% of countries scored higher than 70, whereas 32% scored lower than 50. The index provides a powerful tool to raise public awareness, direct resource management, improve policy and prioritize scientific research.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Halpern, Benjamin S -- Longo, Catherine -- Hardy, Darren -- McLeod, Karen L -- Samhouri, Jameal F -- Katona, Steven K -- Kleisner, Kristin -- Lester, Sarah E -- O'Leary, Jennifer -- Ranelletti, Marla -- Rosenberg, Andrew A -- Scarborough, Courtney -- Selig, Elizabeth R -- Best, Benjamin D -- Brumbaugh, Daniel R -- Chapin, F Stuart -- Crowder, Larry B -- Daly, Kendra L -- Doney, Scott C -- Elfes, Cristiane -- Fogarty, Michael J -- Gaines, Steven D -- Jacobsen, Kelsey I -- Karrer, Leah Bunce -- Leslie, Heather M -- Neeley, Elizabeth -- Pauly, Daniel -- Polasky, Stephen -- Ris, Bud -- St Martin, Kevin -- Stone, Gregory S -- Sumaila, U Rashid -- Zeller, Dirk -- England -- Nature. 2012 Aug 30;488(7413):615-20. doi: 10.1038/nature11397.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, 735 State St Suite 300, Santa Barbara, California 93101, USA. halpern@nceas.ucsb.edu〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22895186" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: In 2010, the international community, under the auspices of the Convention on Biological Diversity, agreed on 20 biodiversity-related "Aichi Targets" to be achieved within a decade. We provide a comprehensive mid-term assessment of progress toward these global targets using 55 indicator data sets. We projected indicator trends to 2020 using an adaptive statistical framework that incorporated the specific properties of individual time series. On current trajectories, results suggest that despite accelerating policy and management responses to the biodiversity crisis, the impacts of these efforts are unlikely to be reflected in improved trends in the state of biodiversity by 2020. We highlight areas of societal endeavor requiring additional efforts to achieve the Aichi Targets, and provide a baseline against which to assess future progress.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Tittensor, Derek P -- Walpole, Matt -- Hill, Samantha L L -- Boyce, Daniel G -- Britten, Gregory L -- Burgess, Neil D -- Butchart, Stuart H M -- Leadley, Paul W -- Regan, Eugenie C -- Alkemade, Rob -- Baumung, Roswitha -- Bellard, Celine -- Bouwman, Lex -- Bowles-Newark, Nadine J -- Chenery, Anna M -- Cheung, William W L -- Christensen, Villy -- Cooper, H David -- Crowther, Annabel R -- Dixon, Matthew J R -- Galli, Alessandro -- Gaveau, Valerie -- Gregory, Richard D -- Gutierrez, Nicolas L -- Hirsch, Tim L -- Hoft, Robert -- Januchowski-Hartley, Stephanie R -- Karmann, Marion -- Krug, Cornelia B -- Leverington, Fiona J -- Loh, Jonathan -- Lojenga, Rik Kutsch -- Malsch, Kelly -- Marques, Alexandra -- Morgan, David H W -- Mumby, Peter J -- Newbold, Tim -- Noonan-Mooney, Kieran -- Pagad, Shyama N -- Parks, Bradley C -- Pereira, Henrique M -- Robertson, Tim -- Rondinini, Carlo -- Santini, Luca -- Scharlemann, Jorn P W -- Schindler, Stefan -- Sumaila, U Rashid -- Teh, Louise S L -- van Kolck, Jennifer -- Visconti, Piero -- Ye, Yimin -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2014 Oct 10;346(6206):241-4. doi: 10.1126/science.1257484. Epub 2014 Oct 2.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), 219 Huntingdon Road, Cambridge CB3 0DL, UK. Department of Biology, Dalhousie University, 1355 Oxford Street, Halifax, NS B3H 4R2, Canada. derek.tittensor@unep-wcmc.org. ; United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), 219 Huntingdon Road, Cambridge CB3 0DL, UK. ; Department of Biology, Queen's University, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada. Ocean Sciences Division, Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Post Office Box 1006, Dartmouth, NS B2Y 4A2, Canada. ; Department of Biology, Dalhousie University, 1355 Oxford Street, Halifax, NS B3H 4R2, Canada. ; United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), 219 Huntingdon Road, Cambridge CB3 0DL, UK. Centre for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, Natural History Museum, Copenhagen, DK-2100, Denmark. ; BirdLife International, Wellbrook Court, Cambridge CB3 0NA, UK. ; ESE Laboratory, Universite Paris-Sud, UMR 8079, CNRS-Universite Paris-Sud, 91405 Orsay, France. ; PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, Post Office Box 303, 3720 AH, Bilthoven, Netherlands. ; Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, 00153 Rome, Italy. ; PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, Post Office Box 303, 3720 AH, Bilthoven, Netherlands. Department of Earth Sciences-Geochemistry, Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University, Post Office Box 80021, 3508 TA Utrecht, Netherlands. ; Fisheries Centre, The University of British Columbia, 2202 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada. ; Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, 413, Saint Jacques Street, Suite 800, Montreal, QC H2Y 1N9, Canada. ; Global Footprint Network, 7-9 Chemin de Balexert, 1219 Geneva, Switzerland. ; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2 rue Andre-Pascal, 75775 Paris Cedex 16, France. ; RSPB Centre for Conservation Science The Lodge, Sandy, Bedfordshire SG19 2DL, UK. ; Marine Stewardship Council, 1-3 Snow Hill, London EC1A 2DH, UK. ; The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) Secretariat Universitetsparken 15, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark. ; Center for Limnology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 680 North Park Street, Madison, WI 53706, USA. ; Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) International, Charles-de-Gaulle Strasse 5, 53113 Bonn, Germany. ; ESE Laboratory, Universite Paris-Sud, UMR 8079, CNRS-Universite Paris-Sud, 91405 Orsay, France. DIVERSITAS, 57 rue Cuvier-CP 41, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France. ; University of Queensland, Diamantina National Park via Winton, QLD 4735, Australia. ; Zoological Society of London, Regent's Park, London NW1 4RY, UK. ; Union for Ethical BioTrade, De Ruyterkade 6, 1013 AA, Amsterdam, Netherlands. ; German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Deutscher Platz 5e, 04103 Leipzig, Germany. Institute of Biology, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Am Kirchtor 1, 06108 Halle (Saale), Germany. ; Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species Secretariat, Maison internationale de l'environnement, 11-13 Chemin des Anemones, 1219 Chatelaine, Geneva, Switzerland. ; Marine Spatial Ecology Lab, School of Biological Sciences, University of Queensland, St. Lucia Brisbane, Qld 4072 Australia. ; The International Union for Conservation of Nature Species Survival Commission (IUCN SSC) Invasive Species Specialist Group, University of Auckland, Tamaki Campus, Auckland, New Zealand. ; AidData, The College of William and Mary, Post Office Box 8795, Williamsburg, VA 23187-8795, USA. ; Department of Biology and Biotechnologies, Sapienza-Universita di Roma, Viale dell' Universita 32, 00185 Rome, Italy. ; United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), 219 Huntingdon Road, Cambridge CB3 0DL, UK. School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QG, UK. ; Environment Agency Austria, Department of Biodiversity and Nature Conservation, Spittelauer Lande 5, 1090 Vienna, Austria. University of Vienna, Department of Botany and Biodiversity Research, Division of Conservation Biology, Vegetation Ecology and Landscape Ecology, Rennweg 14, 1030 Vienna, Austria. ; Microsoft Research, Computational Science Laboratory, 21 Station Road, Cambridge, CB1 2FB, UK.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25278504" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: The ocean moderates anthropogenic climate change at the cost of profound alterations of its physics, chemistry, ecology, and services. Here, we evaluate and compare the risks of impacts on marine and coastal ecosystems-and the goods and services they provide-for growing cumulative carbon emissions under two contrasting emissions scenarios. The current emissions trajectory would rapidly and significantly alter many ecosystems and the associated services on which humans heavily depend. A reduced emissions scenario-consistent with the Copenhagen Accord's goal of a global temperature increase of less than 2 degrees C-is much more favorable to the ocean but still substantially alters important marine ecosystems and associated goods and services. The management options to address ocean impacts narrow as the ocean warms and acidifies. Consequently, any new climate regime that fails to minimize ocean impacts would be incomplete and inadequate.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Gattuso, J-P -- Magnan, A -- Bille, R -- Cheung, W W L -- Howes, E L -- Joos, F -- Allemand, D -- Bopp, L -- Cooley, S R -- Eakin, C M -- Hoegh-Guldberg, O -- Kelly, R P -- Portner, H-O -- Rogers, A D -- Baxter, J M -- Laffoley, D -- Osborn, D -- Rankovic, A -- Rochette, J -- Sumaila, U R -- Treyer, S -- Turley, C -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2015 Jul 3;349(6243):aac4722. doi: 10.1126/science.aac4722.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Laboratoire d'Oceanographie de Villefranche, CNRS-Institut National des Sciences de l'Univers, F-06230 Villefranche-sur-mer, France. Sorbonne Universites, Universite Pierre et Marie Curie, Univ Paris 06, Observatoire Oceanologique, F-06230 Villefranche-sur-mer, France. Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations, Sciences Po, 27 rue Saint Guillaume, F-75007 Paris, France. gattuso@obs-vlfr.fr. ; Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations, Sciences Po, 27 rue Saint Guillaume, F-75007 Paris, France. ; Secretariat of the Pacific Community, B.P. D5, 98848 Noumea Cedex, New Caledonia. ; Nippon Foundation-UBC Nereus Program, University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada. ; Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Am Handelshafen 12, D-27570, Bremenrhaven, Germany. ; Climate and Environmental Physics, Physics Institute and Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Sidlerstrasse 5, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland. ; Centre Scientifique de Monaco, 8 Quai Antoine Ier, MC-98000 Monaco, Principality of Monaco. Institut Pierre Simon Laplace/Laboratoire des Science du Climat et de l'Environnement, UMR8212, CNRS-Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives-Universite de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, Gif sur Yvette, France. ; Ocean Conservancy, 1300 19th Street NW, 8th Floor, Washington, DC 20036, USA. ; Coral Reef Watch, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, College Park, MD 20740, USA. ; Global Change Institute and Australian Research Council Centre for Excellence in Coral Reef Studies, University of Queensland, Building 20, St Lucia, 4072 Queensland, Australia. ; School of Marine and Environmental Affairs, University of Washington, 3707 Brooklyn Avenue NE, Seattle, WA 98105, USA. ; Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PS, UK. ; Scottish Natural Heritage, 231 Corstorphine Road, Edinburgh EH12 7AT, Scotland. ; IUCN, Rue Mauverney 28, CH-1196 Gland, Switzerland. ; Environment Laboratories, International Atomic Energy Agency, 4a Quai Antoine 1er, MC-98000 Monaco, Principality of Monaco. ; Program on Science, Technology, and Society, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. ; Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations, Sciences Po, 27 rue Saint Guillaume, F-75007 Paris, France. Fisheries Economics Research Unit, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada. ; Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Prospect Place, The Hoe, Plymouth PL1 3DH, UK.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26138982" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Sumaila, U. R. 2013. How to make progress in disciplining overfishing subsidies. ICES Journal of Marine Science, 70: 251–258. The World Trade Organization (WTO) has been working for more than seven years now to discipline overfishing subsidies, as mandated by the global community, without success. I argue that this failure is partly because WTO negotiators aim for an all-inclusive deal, i.e. negotiations are conducted as a "single undertaking", whereby results must be achieved in all areas. Negotiators are required to broker an all-inclusive deal for all maritime WTO member countries and for all fisheries, whether domestic or international; small or large scale; developing or developed country fisheries. It is argued here that this commitment to a "single undertaking" does not align the incentive to remove subsidies with national interests, and therefore needs to be changed by splitting the world's fisheries into domestic and international fisheries. In this way, the battle for eliminating overfishing subsidies for some stocks would shift to home countries, and for others this would still rest with the international community. This split, it is argued, would align the incentives and improve the chances of eliminating overfishing subsidies.

Description: Lam, V. W. Y., Sumaila, U. R., Dyck, A., Pauly, D., and Watson, R. 2011. Construction and first applications of a global cost of fishing database. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 68: 1996–2004. The development of a new global database of fishing cost is described, and an overview of fishing cost patterns at national, regional, and global scales is provided. This fishing cost database provides economic information required for assessing the economics of fisheries at various scales. It covers variable and fixed costs of maritime countries, representing ~98% of global landings in 2005. Linked to country and gear-type combinations, cost estimates can be mapped to a database of spatially allocated fisheries catches for future analysis in both spatial and temporal dimensions. The global average variable cost per tonne of catch in 2005 is estimated to range between US$639 and $1217, and the total cost per tonne from $763 to $1477, with mean values of $928 and $1120, respectively. The total global variable fishing cost is estimated to be in the range US$50–96 billion per year, with a mean of $73 billion per annum in 2005 dollar equivalents.

Description: 〈p〉The Paris Agreement aims to mitigate the potential impacts of climate change on ecological and social systems. Using an ensemble of climate-marine ecosystem and economic models, we explore the effects of implementing the Agreement on fish, fishers, and seafood consumers worldwide. We find that implementing the Agreement could protect millions of metric tons in annual worldwide catch of top revenue-generating fish species, as well as billions of dollars annually of fishers’ revenues, seafood workers’ income, and household seafood expenditure. Further, our analysis predicts that 75% of maritime countries would benefit from this protection, and that ~90% of this protected catch would occur within the territorial waters of developing countries. Thus, implementing the Paris Agreement could prove to be crucial for the future of the world’s ocean ecosystems and economies.〈/p〉

Description: While the ecological impacts of fishing the waters beyond national jurisdiction (the "high seas") have been widely studied, the economic rationale is more difficult to ascertain because of scarce data on the costs and revenues of the fleets that fish there. Newly compiled satellite data and machine learning now allow us to track individual fishing vessels on the high seas in near real time. These technological advances help us quantify high-seas fishing effort, costs, and benefits, and assess whether, where, and when high-seas fishing makes economic sense. We characterize the global high-seas fishing fleet and report the economic benefits of fishing the high seas globally, nationally, and at the scale of individual fleets. Our results suggest that fishing at the current scale is enabled by large government subsidies, without which as much as 54% of the present high-seas fishing grounds would be unprofitable at current fishing rates. The patterns of fishing profitability vary widely between countries, types of fishing, and distance to port. Deep-sea bottom trawling often produces net economic benefits only thanks to subsidies, and much fishing by the world’s largest fishing fleets would largely be unprofitable without subsidies and low labor costs. These results support recent calls for subsidy and fishery management reforms on the high seas.