EDFish

Selected tag(s): research

The Climate-Resilient Fisheries Toolkit can help you build resilience now

By Jeff Young

Climate change and overfishing are increasingly straining fisheries and marine ecosystems, putting marine biodiversity, the nutrition of people in coastal communities and global food supply at greater risk. Fishers, community leaders and practitioners worldwide are poised to take action, but often grapple with uncertainty, limited data or insufficient resources. Meanwhile, the journey of building resilience can often feel daunting and overwhelming. These leaders and change-makers are not alone in their experiences and tangible solutions to these major challenges are within reach. Read More »

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Sustainable fisheries management experiences from China

Marine fisheries provide protein for more than 3 billion people worldwide, provide employment opportunities for more than 200 million people, and make significant contributions to people’s livelihoods, food security and well-being. However, due to climate change, overfishing, habitat destruction, marine environmental pollution and eutrophication, global fishery resources — including Chinese fisheries — are facing a serious decline. Read More »

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Seaweeds to the rescue, redux

Recently, there has been a great deal of interest and even excitement about how seaweed might be able to help save us from climate change.

I appreciate the newfound exuberance for seaweed, and wholeheartedly agree that seaweeds do a lot for society and the planet. A similar awakening to the wonders of seaweed occurred in the 1980s, but it is now a distant memory. Let’s revisit the past so we can figure out how to create the conditions that will drive the restoration of seaweed forests and the expansion of seaweed farming at scale so they can contribute to carbon drawdown while benefiting people and nature. Read More »

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Hope for the oceans in a time of COVID-19

The global COVID-19 pandemic gives us all pause about what the future holds. Our focus and attention are on all those hurt by this terrible disease. But for many of us, this is also a time of deep reflection about society and the world we’ll inhabit when this scourge is over. So for me, it’s also a moment to reflect on the prospects for the ocean, one of the planet’s fundamental life-support systems — making it vital to human health and well-being. Read More »

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Healthy Fisheries Need Sound Science, Good Policy and Stable Markets

Cape May1By:  Alexis Rife & Jake Kritzer

Any fishery functions as a series of complex interactions among an ecosystem, the political arena, the economy, cultural norms and traditions, and other systems. Understanding these interacting systems is critical for achieving EDF’s triple bottom line goals: more fish in the sea, more food on the plate, and more prosperous communities. EDF has been tackling this challenge by bringing together expertise spanning disciplinary boundaries, including biology and ecology, social sciences, policy analysis, and business planning.  Members of EDF’s Fishery Solutions Center recently spent two days in Boston meeting with partners from Yale University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) to integrate research efforts in support of sustainable fisheries worldwide.

Participants reviewed the recent global macro-analysis of the biological, social and economic upside that can be realized by aligning incentives in fisheries through the application of well-designed fishing rights.  We then considered three parallel analyses that allow deeper understanding of how to best design scientific, policy and market systems that allow for the upside to be realized. Read More »

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Exploring opportunities for ecosystem-based management of U.S. nearshore tropical reef fisheries

Gardens of the Queen, Cuba. Photo: Noel Lopez Fernandez

Gardens of the Queen, Cuba. Photo: Noel Lopez Fernandez

By: Kendra Karr & Rod Fujita

There is a general consensus that transitioning to ecosystem-based fisheries management will result in better outcomes for both marine ecosystems and the people who depend on them.  But what exactly does that mean, and how exactly can fisheries management get there?

Ecosystem-based fisheries management has been thoroughly debated and there are many aspects to it.  But one thing seems clear. When developing conservation and management goals, the entire ecosystem should be considered rather than just an individual fish population.

To actually achieve such goals, scientists and managers would need to quantify fishing targets and limits and then take actions intended to maintain fisheries and the ecosystem within a “safe operating space” associated with the maintenance of a variety of ecosystem goods and services. In our new publication, we have moved one step closer to identifying these fishing targets and limits for management in multi-species fisheries in coral reefs. Read More »

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