Trends in high seas fisheries

In 1976, States began to declare extended fisheries jurisdictions, such as Exclusive Economic Zones, in anticipation of an international acceptance of this concept. That was obtained in 1982 in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. From the mid-1970s a large number of fishing nations declared a 200 n miles EEZ and high seas fisheries has become fishing undertaken outside the EEZs generally more than 200 n. miles from the coast.

Assessing the development of fishing on the high seas is difficult because reports to FAO of marine catches make no distinction between those taken within EEZs and those taken on the high seas. Analyses of the FAO catch database of 116 species items classified as oceanic (epipelagic and deep water species that occur principally on the high seas) reveal that catches of oceanic species have almost tripled since 1976 from 3 million tonnes to 8.5 million tonnes in 2000 (Figure 1). As some of these species, and particularly the oceanic tunas, are also caught within EEZs, this may well be a more rapid increase than that of high seas catches per se.

This marked increase in catches of oceanic species is also reflected in the world trade in oceanic species. Import and export quantities have risen from 0.5 million tonnes to almost 2.5 million tonnes in product weight over the same period (Figure 2). Faced with increasing evidence of overfishing on the high seas, efforts to manage these high seas fisheries have also accelerated since that time and are continuing today with the development of new regional fisheries management organisations and the revitalisation of existing organizations.