Sustainable fisheries

Fisheries managed to maintain fish populations and ecosystem health while supporting fishing over time. Their management accounts for ecological limits, fishing impacts, and the needs of fishing communities.

Maximum sustainable yield: The largest average catch that can be taken from a fish population indefinitely under specified conditions. It offers a harvest target, though uncertainty and ecosystem effects can make it risky as a sole goal.
New Zealand fisheries quota management system: New Zealand's national system for managing many commercial fisheries through species-specific catch limits and quota rights. It illustrates a nationwide quota approach and raises questions about allocation and compliance.
Overfishing: Fishing mortality high enough to deplete a stock or impair its capacity to replenish. It is the outcome sustainable management aims to prevent or reverse.
Climate change and fisheries: The effects of long-term climate change on fish populations, fishing grounds, and fisheries-dependent communities. Shifting species ranges can make historical stock boundaries and fixed allocations harder to manage.
Total allowable catch: A legally established limit on the amount of a fish stock that may be caught during a period. Catch limits turn assessments of stock condition into enforceable harvest ceilings.
Alaska halibut fishery: A commercial fishery for Pacific halibut managed jointly by the United States and Canada through the International Pacific Halibut Commission. Its quota management offers a case of regulating harvest in a long-running transboundary fishery.
Fish stock collapse: A severe decline in a fish population that sharply reduces its abundance or fishery productivity. Collapse shows the ecological and economic costs of harvest that exceeds a stock's capacity.
Precautionary principle: A policy approach that favors protective action when plausible serious harm remains uncertain. It guides decisions when stock estimates are incomplete but waiting could allow depletion.
Individual transferable quota: A system that allocates portions of a fishery's total catch limit to participants and allows those shares to be traded. It is one way to distribute a catch limit, with consequences for access and fleet structure.
Bering Sea pollock fishery: A large commercial fishery targeting walleye pollock in the Bering Sea, managed under United States federal law. It shows how catch limits, monitoring, and ecosystem concerns meet in a high-volume fishery.

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