Browsing by Subject "Spatial management"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Evaluating Spatial Management on the High Seas: A Performance Review of Fisheries Closures and Marine Protected Areas
    (2022-04-22) Tuohy, Chelsea
    As the United Nations continues to negotiate a legally binding treaty for the conservation of biological diversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction, many argue that a governance gap will be created if species managed by regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) and non-target species impacted by fisheries are left unaccounted for. RFMOs are currently unlikely to be affected or held to a higher standard in the new treaty as not to “undermine current legal and regulatory frameworks”. However, the last comprehensive assessment RFMOs, completed in 2010 by Sarika Cullis-Suzuki and Daniel Pauley, concluded that RFMOs were failing to manage high seas fisheries. This review provides an updated performance assessment of how well RFMOs manage fish stocks in areas beyond national jurisdiction through closures and protected areas, a criterion that was not thoroughly reviewed in 2010 due to spatial management not being part of the requirements of RFMOs at the time. The spatial management review is a component of a more extensive comprehensive performance review of the seventeen RFMOs by a team of researchers at Duke University, NYU, and the Stockholm Resilience Centre led by Duke Marine Lab Ph.D. student Gabrielle Carmine. Furthermore, this review highlights vulnerable marine ecosystems (VMEs) as a case study to provide insight into the management regimes and decision-making processes of RFMOs, given that bottom fishing organizations scored highest in the spatial management review.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Opportunities for enhancing an ecosystem-based approach to pelagic fisheries management in the high seas
    (2020) Ortuno Crespo, Guillermo A

    Open‐ocean fisheries expanded rapidly from the 1960s and currently represent the largest direct stressor on high seas biodiversity and ecosystems. Open-ocean ecological research and the implementation of management actions to mitigate the impacts of fisheries has lagged behind those of coastal and deep-sea environments. I investigate opportunities to enhance a wholistic ecosystem-based approach to high seas fisheries management by: reviewing our understanding of the impacts fisheries across ecological scales, evaluating the gaps and opportunities in the mandates of existing and future governance frameworks and developing methodologies for creating dynamic spatiotemporal management tools to reduce bycatch. Results demonstrate that fisheries are impacting the open-ocean across ecological scales. Results also show that the population trajectories of most non-target species in the high seas are not being monitored by fishing nations, nor relevant fisheries management organizations. A new implementing agreement under the UN to sustainably manage high seas biodiversity could complement the mandates fisheries bodies. There is an opportunity for new technologies and modeling approaches to contribute to the implementation of an ecosystem-based approach to management by generating knowledge on the spatial ecology commercial fisheries and high seas biodiversity. My results show that the distribution of target and non-target species, as well as longline fishing activities are correlated with environmental conditions and that these can be predicted across spatial and temporal scales to inform spatial management of high seas pelagic fishing activities. Implementing an ecosystem-based approach will require embracing a precautionary approach to reduce the bycatch of non-target species, which can be accomplished through spatiotemporal avoidance and improving our monitoring of fisheries impacts across ecological scales.