Research reveals global fisheries in worse shape than reported
New research reveals that overfishing is rife around the world, casting doubt on current claims from fisheries. Scientists say that many overfished species are in worse condition than reported, with the sustainability of certain fisheries also being overstated.
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00:00So these models are like really complicated accounts that kind of keep track of how many
00:07fish we have in our fisheries.
00:09So they're keeping track of new babies coming in through births and fish going out through
00:13deaths or being caught.
00:14So they're really important to let us know whether we're fishing sustainably.
00:18Now I know that you were concerned that these models were perhaps not accurate, so you embarked
00:24on your own investigations.
00:26What did you do?
00:27What did you set out to achieve?
00:28Yeah, so we looked at 230 fisheries from around the world and we looked at how these models
00:34compared to older versions done when they were backdated.
00:37So these models are repeated year after year so we can get an idea of how fish stocks are
00:43tracking.
00:44And what we found was that the numbers of fish or the amount of fish in the ocean tended
00:47to be overstated by these models.
00:50And that situation tended to be worse when a fish stock was approaching overfishing limit.
00:54So that's just the moment when we need to take management action.
00:58So why do you think then these models aren't right?
01:02Why haven't the authorities kept up with it?
01:06Well they're very complex models, it's a very difficult job as you can imagine to figure
01:10out how many fish are in the ocean.
01:12There's a lot of fish out there and we can't see them and they move around.
01:17So there's a lot of account keeping that has to be done and there's a lot of room for error
01:20to come into these models.
01:22And it just seems that the way that's been done, we're saying there's more fish than
01:27there actually is and the models are not giving us consistent results through time.
01:32Which areas did you look at in particular, were there any commercially viable fishing
01:36areas around Australia that you looked at?
01:40Some of our Australian fisheries were included in the analysis and I will say by and large
01:44Australia's fisheries are considered sustainable.
01:47So about 70% of our fisheries are sustainable and about 15% of those managed by the Federal
01:53Government are in that category of overfishing.
01:57So these are the ones we really need to look after to get them back to being productive fisheries.
02:01Can you just remind our viewers what the consequences of overfishing is?
02:05Yeah, so when we overfish a fish stock it means we can't catch fish anymore or as many
02:10fishers as we were.
02:11This means we lose jobs, we lose economic production, so our fisheries are worth one
02:16and a half billion per year in economic production to Australia.
02:20And obviously for Australian communities fisheries are a really important part of our culture
02:24and social structure.
02:25So we lose a lot of those benefits if we don't look after our fisheries properly.
02:30So how did some of these discrepancies come about?
02:35So when we're looking at these complex stock models there's a lot of calculations that
02:39have to be done and if they're not done properly or if things are changing over time then that
02:46means as we fish a population down and the number of fish starts to reduce we might not
02:51be noticed that we're losing those fish.
02:54That means when we should be reducing catches we're not because we're not realising we're
02:57approaching this overfishing status.
03:00So Christopher, what action would you like to see taken as a result of your investigations?
03:06Well I think we need to look more into how these models are done and look at ways to
03:10improve them so that they're more consistent and we're not getting this bias.
03:14I think that every day Australians might be wondering too, should I eat seafood?
03:18I say yes, go out there and eat seafood but I'd just like Australians to do one thing
03:22differently.
03:23I would like you to ask where your seafood comes and what species it is and get some
03:26information and support Australian fisheries that are sustainably fished.
03:30So how can they find out if it is coming from a sustainably fished area?
03:36You can ask your fish producers where your fish is coming from and Australian fisheries
03:41you can look up their status on the Status of Australian Fish Stocks webpage and that
03:45will give you the information that we have on all of our fisheries.