The world's seas and oceans are currently facing numerous environmental problems (such as pollution) that significantly affect the performance of fisheries. One of the most relevant problems in recent years is overfishing. The overexploitation of natural resources It is not exclusive to the marine environment, it also occurs in the terrestrial environment, with livestock and agricultural activities, and endangers food security, among other aspects. However, in the seas it takes on special importance due to the scarce social awareness that exists. Fisheries management focused on improving fish populations is failing due to the exclusion that it has made of the actors directly involved in the environment: the fishermen.
If you want to understand what overfishing is and what its consequences are, among other details, check out this Green Ecologist article in which it is exposed what is overfishing, its causes, consequences and solutions.
The overfishing or overfishing occurs when the ability to extraction of resources from the sea and ocean exceeds its ability to renew. In other words, this phenomenon implies a excessive catch level of a kind if we take into account the time it has to regenerate.
Overfishing, as established by the FAO, can occur in 3 different ways, affecting:
The overcapacity of the fleets of the different species is largely caused by the measures and regulations of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) aimed at the time to renew the European fleet. With this, the vessels increased their tonnage and power and, in addition, introduced new technologies to increase productivity. However, far from improving the efficiency of the activity, the oversized vessels accelerated the process of exploitation of seas and oceans, exceeding the Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) of some populations of commercial species. So what are the causes of overfishing and how overfishing affects the environment?
If you have come to this article wondering about how to end overfishing, you will be interested in this section in which it is exposed what measures should be taken to avoid overfishing.
To reduce fishing intensity, it is important to properly manage quotas and space-time closures from a sustainable approach. This implies raising the fishing communities to management and governance scenarios, allowing:
In addition, it is necessary to know other complementary alternatives to those exposed to know how to avoid overfishing:
If you want to read more articles similar to Overfishing: what is it, causes, consequences and solutions, we recommend that you enter our category of Other environment.