The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2010 - FAO

World review of fisheries and aquaculture
15
For the Southern Ocean (Antarctic) areas, FAO derives catch statistics from
information produced by the Commission on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine
Living Resources (CCAMLR). Owing to the strict and effective management regime
applied by this RFB, catch variations in this region are usually small, but a marked
increase in krill catches was registered in 2008.
The dominant species in marine fishery catches (Figure 6) have been the same since
2003 and only a few changes in the ranking have occurred in the last six years, another
sign of a relative stability. The share of the top ten species in global marine catches
has varied little, oscillating between 29 and 33 percent. However, there are differences
among the trend trajectories of the various species groups and the most striking are
described below.
Growth of tuna fisheries halted in 2008 as catches of this species group decreased
by 2.6 percent after the 2007 global record of almost 6.5 million tonnes (Figure 7).
While maximum tuna catches in the Pacific Ocean (which represents about 70 percent
of the global catches) and in the Indian Ocean were reached in 2007 and 2006,
respectively, the peak of Atlantic tuna catches dates back to 1993. Shark catches
decreased by almost 20 percent from their 2003 peak at 0.9 million tonnes. It is hoped
that this reduction is partially due to the effectiveness of the management measures
(e.g. finning ban) implemented at the national and regional levels to regulate both
fisheries targeting sharks and shark bycatch, rather than to stock decline resulting from
overfishing of sharks.
The decline of the gadiformes (“cods, hakes, haddocks” in Figure 7) seems
relentless. In 2008, catches of this species group as a whole did not total
8 million tonnes, a level that had been until then consistently exceeded since 1967 and
that reached a peak of almost 14 million tonnes in 1987. In the last decade, catches
of Atlantic cod, the iconic species of this group, have been somewhat stable in the
Northwest Atlantic at about 50 000 tonnes (very low by historical standards), but in the
Northeast Atlantic catches have further decreased by 30 percent.
Cephalopod catches set a new record in 2008, although their growth seems to have
levelled off. This is the species group that has shown the strongest performance in
recent years, with a gain of more than 1 million tonnes since 2002 (Figure 7). Crabs are
another group of invertebrates that reached a maximum in 2008, with overall catches
growing by one-quarter in the last six years. On the other hand, shrimp catches have
Figure 6
Marine capture fisheries production: top ten species in 2008
Anchoveta
7.4
Alaska pollock
Atlantic herring
Skipjack tuna
2.5
2.4
2.7
Chub mackerel
1.9
Largehead hairtail
Blue whiting
Chilean jack mackerel
Japanese anchovy
Yellowfin tuna
1.4
1.3
1.3
1.3
1.1
0 2 4 6 8
Million tonnes