Overfishing

Ray Hilborn is Professor in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences at the University of Washington. Ulrike Hilborn is a writer and has worked with her husband, Ray, for 37 years.

• Preface ; Chapter 1: Overfishing ; What is overfishing? ; What is a sustainable harvest? ; Can fisheries be sustainably harvested? ; Is overfishing a new problem? ; Why does sustainable fishing reduce the number of fish in the ocean? ; What is a collapsed fishery? ; I have heard stories of the Canadian cod, what happened? ; Why did the Canadian cod collapse? ; Are all cod fisheries collapsed? ; Chapter 2: Historical overfishing ; Is overfishing a new problem? ; Can whales be sustainably harvested? ; How do we estimate the abundance of animals in the ocean? ; Can scientists estimate the sustainable yield? ; Is there any value in Japanese <"research whaling>"? ; Is depleting one population and moving onto the next a common problem? ; Chapter 3 : Recovery of Fisheries ; Can fish stocks recover from overfishing? ; How important is habitat to fish populations? ; What about the enormous numbers seen by John Smith? ; What is the difference between recruitment overfishing and growth overfishing? ; Can recreational and commercial fisheries co-exist? ; Chapter 4: Modern industrial fisheries management ; What is an example of a well-managed fishery? ; What is different about the pollock fishery that makes it such a good example of sustainable management? ; Why does the allowable catch change so much from year to year? ; What is a stock assessment? ; What is an observer program? ; Why are there not more observer programs in world fisheries? ; What is a certified fishery? ; Why do some NGOs believe the Eastern Bering Sea pollock fishery is not well managed? ; Chapter 5: Economic Overfishing ; Is overfishing only a biological problem? ; What are individual fishermen's quotas, the IFQs? ; What are the benefits of IFQs? ; What are the negative impacts of IFQs? ; What is economic overfishing? ; How economically efficient are world fisheries in general? ; How do we prevent economic overfishing? ; Are there ways to prevent the tragedy of the commons without privatizing fisheries? ; What are community development quotas? ; How does sector allocation work? ; What other mechanisms have been used to allocate fish? ; Chapter 6: Climate and fisheries ; How does climate affect fish populations? ; Are many fisheries affected by climate? ; How can we tell if a fishery is declining because of climate or fishing pressure? ; What are going to be the impacts on fisheries from a warming ocean? ; What will be the impacts of ocean acidification? ; Chapter 7: Mixed fisheries ; Do fisheries catch one species or more? ; What determines how hard a fish species can be harvested? ; How do we balance harvesting high- and low-productivity species in mixed fisheries? ; What is <"underfishing"? ; Is it better to give up potential yield of productive species to keep unproductive species at high abundance? ; How can we manage fisheries to reduce the mixed nature of the fishery? ; Chapter 8: High Seas Fisheries ; What is the status of bluefin tuna that were proposed for CITES listing? ; What is the status of tuna around the world? ; Are there examples of international fisheries management organizations that have been successful? ; Why are some tuna stocks under-exploited and others overexploited? ; Is there hope for managing these high-seas fisheries? ; Chapter 9: Deepwater fisheries ; We hear a lot about the collapse of orange roughy stocks - what happened to them? ; Can very slow growing fish like orange roughy be sustainably managed? ; What is the experience with orange roughy in other countries? ; Does closing large sections of New Zealand's economic zone assure the sustainability of orange roughy? ; Should we have left potential orange roughy stocks unfished until we know more about their biology and ecosystem? ; How should we deal with new resources when their biology and sustainability is highly uncertain? ; Chapter 10: Recreational fisheries ; Are recreational fisheries fundamentally different from commercial fisheries? ; What is the scale of recreational fishing in the United States and Europe? ; How does recreational fish management differ from managing commercial fisheries? ; How does freshwater recreational fisheries management differ from saltwater recreational fisheries? ; Does recreational fishing play a role in overfishing? ; Chapter 11: Small scale and artisanal fisheries ; Many of the fisheries of the world are small scale - how can they be managed? ; Is Chile typical of small scale fisheries? ; How were fisheries managed prior to modern governmental fisheries agencies? ; What are the characteristics of territorial fishing rights? ; What are the general lessons for successful management of small scale fisheries? ; Chapter 12: Illegal fishing ; Is illegal fishing an important problem in overfishing? ; Is the illegal fishing of Patagonian toothfish unusual? ; How can some toothfish fisheries be certified as well-managed while there remains substantial illegal harvesting? ; What methods can be used to reduce illegal fishing in international waters? ; Chapter 13: Trawling impacts on ecosystems ; How do trawls and dredges work and why are they still used to catch fish? ; Is trawling the ocean like clear-cutting the forest? ; How long do ecosystems take to recover from trawling? ; Are there alternatives to trawling and dredging as ways to catch fish? ; Chapter 14: Marine Protected Areas ; What are Marine Protected Areas? ; What do Marine Protected Areas protect? ; How much of the world's oceans are now closed to fishing? ; What is the impact of closing areas to fishing? ; Do MPAs increase the abundance of fish? ; Can MPAs solve some of the problems of overfishing? ; How much of the ocean should be set aside as protected from fishing? ; Chapter 15: Ecosystem impacts of fishing ; How does overfishing affect ecosystems? ; Are coral reefs particularly sensitive to fishing? ; What is a trophic cascade? ; Do forage fish need special protection? ; What is by-catch and how important is it? ; How does ecosystem based management differ from single species management? ; What is the precautionary approach to fisheries management? ; How many marine fish species are threatened with extinction? ; Chapter 16: The status of overfishing ; Are the world's stocks overfished? ; What characterizes countries that have managed their fisheries well and those that have not? ; How important are subsidies in the current problem with fisheries? ; Is consumer action and certification an important part of stopping overfishing? ; How do the environmental costs of fishing compare to those of livestock? ; Should we all become vegetarians? ; What is needed to stop overfishing? ; Further Reading ; Index

Ray Hilborn (Univ. of Washington), a well-known fishery biologist, presents a comprehensive analysis of the overfishing problem, and he correctly points out that many species are not being overfished.