Abstract:
abstract
Most of the fish stocks in the world, including European fish stocks, are threatened by overfishing and/or
degraded environmental conditions. Although the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) is the main policy
instrument managing fish stocks in Europe, there is continued concern as to whether commercial fish
stocks will achieve Good Environmental Status (GEnS) in 2020 in accordance with the Marine Strategy
Framework Directive (MSFD). In this context, the evaluation of the status of fish stocks in the subareas of
FAO fishing area 27 was carried out using mean trophic levels (MTL) in fish landings and spawning stock
biomass (SSB). Comparisons were made before and after 2008 to establish whether the trend is positive
or negative. The main data sources for landings and SSB were the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) advisory reports. MTLs in landing and SSB were determined for each subarea and
the subareas were categorized into four groups, according to MTLs after 2008. The first group (subareas
I þ II, V) had higher MTL in landings and higher MTL in SSB after 2008. Therefore, fisheries in these
subareas appear sustainable. The second group was subareas VIII þ IX, for which the fish stocks have
higher MTL in landings but low MTL in SSB, indicating that SSB was being overfished. The third was
subarea (VI), where fish stocks have lower MTL in landings than those in SSB after 2008, which may
indicate that fish stocks are recovering. Fish stocks in the fourth group (subareas III, IV and VII) had low
MTL in landings and the MTL in SSB was lower than that of landings before 2008. This may be due to
heavy fishing. In addition, we estimated the harvest rate (HR) of the fish stocks before and after 2008. The
results showed that most of the fish stocks have lower HR after 2008, indicating that the status has
improved, perhaps due to improvements in the implementation of CFP. However, some fish stocks
showed high HR even after 2008, so that new management options are still needed. Other factors such as
eutrophication, seafloor disturbances, marine pollution, invasive species etc., influence SSB ecosystem
health options and should also be incorporated in the management criteria. Most of these environmental
pressures are of high priority in the MSFD, and therefore the findings of this study will be useful for both
CFP and MSFD.
