Photo: Donny Fernando/World Bank
Did you know that fish and seafood supply more than 20 percent of dietary protein for over 3 billion people? Or that demand for fish and seafood is expected to double by 2050 from today’s levels? Many countries are counting on fisheries to underpin their food security in the decades to come.
Yet for such a critical part of the global food system, fisheries are surprisingly poorly managed. By 2021, about 35 percent of marine fish stocks globally were overexploited, driven by soaring demand, advanced fishing and processing technologies prioritizing volume, and weak governance. This short-term focus on increased harvests and profits has inevitably led to declining fish populations.
By contrast, sustainable fisheries management typically involves restricting fishing—by limiting harvest amounts or controlling when and where fishing occurs—allowing stocks to remain healthy and thus enabling larger long-term harvests.
However, these measures pose short-term challenges for fishing communities and are hard to enforce where multiple actors are involved. Today for example, many of the planet’s 60 million small-scale fishers share waters with larger commercial vessels, competing for the same catch but with far fewer resources.
To sustainably manage marine fisheries in the context of rising demand for food, a dual approach will be needed: investing in supply chains while implementing robust management measures (figure 1). Although every fishery is unique, a tailored combination of these two approaches is key to increase food production from fisheries worldwide.
Figure 1: Supply-chain investments and fishery management measures work together.
Note: Stylized depiction based on study results.
In a new study prepared in collaboration with Indonesia’s Marine Affairs and Fisheries Ministry, the University of California in Santa Barbara, the University of Hawaii, and Hatfield Indonesia – we show how these dynamics could play out in Indonesia, one of the world’s most important fishing nations. The country is home to over seven million fishers, who supply over six million tons of fish and over 50 percent of the country’s total animal-based protein.
The study uses a bioeconomic model (a tool which combines predictions of economic behavior and ecological change) to assess the prospects of sustainably managing three critical fisheries in Eastern Indonesia: skipjack tuna, snapper-grouper, and scad mackerel. These fisheries contribute to export revenues, local food security and jobs, in addition to being important for both small-scale fishers and larger fishing businesses.
It establishes four main findings:
First, the benefits from enhanced fisheries management are large. Improved fishery management could deliver a long-term (within ten years) annual boost to economic benefits of more than $250 million from these three fisheries alone.
Second, investments in supply chains need to occur where fish populations are well managed. Supply chain investments such as cold storage, processing facilities, and wet markets cause fishing revenues to increase by an average of 23 to 47 percent. However, higher prices can incentivize increased fishing activity, intensifying pressure on stocks and jeopardizing long-term harvests.
Third, the benefits are the greatest when supply chain investments happen alongside management improvements (figure 1). In the short-term, supply chain investments raise fishing revenues, helping compensate for losses incurred when sustainable fishing measures are activated. At the same time, management actions safeguard fish stocks, securing revenues over longer time periods.
Lastly, small- and large-scale fishing need to be managed in an integrated manner: Management upgrades on one side have spillover benefits on the other, given that both compete for same fish. However, this also means that failing to address challenges in one sector undermines outcomes in the other. Coordinated action across both sectors is therefore essential.
Indonesia is aiming to capitalize on its fisheries to advance food security, through initiatives such as the Quota-Based Sustainable Fisheries Policy, and the World Bank-supported Oceans for Prosperity (Lautan Sejahtera, or LAUTRA) Project, which aims to support community-based fishery management and marine protected areas.
Moving forward, there are many more opportunities to harvest fish sustainably, in Indonesia and globally. Governments have an important role to play. They can prioritize supply chain investments, such as new landing or cold storage facilities, to well-managed fisheries, and use fees and levies to dissuade fishing on over-exploited stocks. They can also set up incentive structures, such as conditional quota allocations to sub-national governments that use best practices.
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