Fresh hope for world’s fisheries

There is fresh hope that the world’s depleted fisheries can be saved from collapse, says a team of researchers.

They said that efforts introduced to halt overfishing in five of the 10 large marine ecosystems they examined were showing signs of success.

A combination of measures – such as catch quotas, no-take zones, and selective fishing gear – had helped fish stocks recover, they added.

Details of the two-year study by 21 marine scientists appear in Science.

However, the team warned, a large percentage of the world’s fisheries remained unmanaged, so much work still had to be done to halt the damage caused by overfishing.

Optimistic outlook

The authors said the study, which looked at key fisheries in Europe, North America and New Zealand, had two goals:

The first was to examine current trends in fish stocks, while the second was to identify what tools had been used in attempts to replenish fish numbers.

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