Update on Safina Center activities to mitigate fishing mortality of threatened species

By Eric Gilman, Scientist in Residence

My research includes methods to mitigate and manage fisheries incidental bycatch of co-occurring threatened species. Fisheries that target productive species can have profound impacts on incidentally caught species with low fecundity and other life history traits that make them vulnerable to anthropogenic sources of mortality. I also work on assessing and mitigating the production and adverse impacts of abandoned, lost and discarded fishing gear.

Here I provide brief updates on some of our current work.

Decision support tool

During the first half of 2022, our project team completed a decision support tool for integrated bycatch management. The tool enables stakeholders to establish and meet objectives for managing the effects of fishing on threatened bycatch species. Stakeholders are also able to account for multispecies conflicts caused by some bycatch mitigation methods, improving upon prevailing piecemeal, taxa-specific designs of bycatch management systems. We recently published an article on the support tool – available here.

We began applying the bycatch decision tool for a Taiwanese-owned, Vanuatu-flagged albacore tuna longline fishery. Stakeholders adopted a bycatch management strategy and are now implementing a workplan for the year 2022.

Dockside inventories are being conducted on tuna longline fishing vessels, in part, to identify new gear technology bycatch mitigation methods.

Gilman dockside taking inventory

Going bycatch-neutral

We recently completed a study that describes potential benefits and risks of applying a sequential mitigation hierarchy for evidence-informed bycatch management. Mitigation methods that avoid capture are considered before those that minimize catch risk. These are then followed by remediation interventions that reduce fishing mortality and sublethal impacts. Finally, as a last result, equivalent gains for residual bycatch losses can be obtained through direct offsets, in lieu fee-based compensatory mitigation and compensatory mitigation banks:

·       Direct offsets, also referred to as permittee-responsible offsets under wetlands and conservation offset programs, where the entity responsible for a biodiversity loss directly implements the offset activity;

·       Banking, a type of compensatory mitigation, where restored, enhanced, created and, in rare cases, preserved biodiversity units are quantified as credits that can be debited to provide compensation in advance of authorized impacts of similar biodiversity units; and

·       In-lieu fee-based compensatory mitigation, also called offset funding, where the entity responsible for the biodiversity loss pays a public or private body to implement conservation activities.

 A sequential mitigation hierarchy framework has been included in environmental impact assessment policies for wetlands and terrestrial natural resources since the 1960s, yet surprisingly remains absent from international bycatch management guidelines, bycatch management frameworks, fisheries ecological sustainability standards and major seafood buyers’ sourcing policies. We aim to correct this long-overdue deficit. We are now exploring options for bycatch offset pilots.

Matching drivers of derelict fishing gear to relevant interventions

There has been increasing recognition of the need to address adverse ecological and socioeconomic effects of abandoned, lost and discarded fishing gear. This component of marine debris has been progressively problematic over recent decades with the rapid expansion of global fisheries’ footprint and effort, and the transition to synthetic and more durable materials for gear components. Drivers and consequences of derelict gear vary substantially by gear type, region, scale and individual fishery, including the fishery-specific enabling environment. We conducted a study that compiled cross-referenced databases of causes of derelict production and mitigation methods for effective management. The linked databases enable discovery of the most promising mitigation methods and priority fisheries management improvements so that a broader range of policy interventions can be tapped. The resulting publication is available here. It was published in a special issue on derelict fishing gear in the journal Marine Policy.