Massive “ensemble” climate modelling study includes work of multiple IOF researchers

Massive “ensemble” climate modelling study includes work of multiple IOF researchers

Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries (IOF) researchers played a starring role in an ensemble cast of marine ecosystem modellers working together on the Fisheries and Marine Intercomparison Project (Fish-MIP).

The project used nine different computer models, created by different teams around the world, to illustrate with greater clarity and range how ocean life will be impacted by Earth’s warming climate.

“You can think about it like cars,” said Juliano Palacios-Abrantes, a graduate of the IOF’s PhD program currently working as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Wisconsin. “The models are all like different car models, they all have similar objectives but are constructed a bit different from each other. The models draw a picture of how the world is today, and how it will look at the end of the century. The idea behind using several models is that you build some security in your results.”

The models are constantly being updated to include greater detail, account for technological advancements and adopt new knowledge of ecology and climate change. This is the sixth time the group has come together to produce a new iteration, the previous being in 2014.

The red signifies a decrease in biomass, and the blue signifies an increase. The change is by the end of the century relative to 1990 to 1999.


Palacios-Abrantes worked alongside IOF Director William Cheung to run the DBEM, a model developed by Cheung that depicted how the distribution of marine fish will change depending on ocean water oxygen levels, acidity, salinity and temperature, among others.

Working on a paper with over 30 authors comes with challenges, according to Palacios-Abrantes.

“Running the model is not that different because at the end, all of the data part was done between me and William,” he said. “The writing though, it’s pretty tricky. Four or five main authors wrote the first draft, and they put it on a Google doc, and then everyone contributes to it. It’s interesting how you see from the first draft, it just becomes a rainbow on the Google doc.”

The new models predict that climate change will have even more severe impacts on marine life than earlier models projected.

“The core message from these runs with the FishMiP models is that there will be lower biomasses in the future ocean, especially under high-emission scenarios,” said IOF professor and co-author Villy Christensen, who contributed the EcoOcean model that he is developing jointly with Marta Coll and Jeroen Steenbeek, also co-authors on the study. “The results also show regional differences, generally with potential for higher biomasses at high latitudes and lower in the warmer parts of the oceans.”

The study is designed to be of direct use for the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), which evaluates impacts of climate change on Earth’s biodiversity, Christensen said.

He also expects that it will be used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in future climate change assessments.

The study “Next-generation ensemble projections reveal higher climate risks for marine ecosystems” was published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

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“Race to jellyfish” leaves Mexican fishery in turbulent water

Stomolophus meleagris, source: uk.wikipedia, permission by user: Shao

As countries deplete fish stocks in their own waters, they increasingly look to other nations for a steady supply of seafood favourites. This can result in large fisheries operations appearing in different places around the globe almost overnight and rapidly exploiting the fish stocks there, where the target fish aren’t part of local cuisine.

Such is the case with cannonball jellyfish, an edible jellyfish species popular in China and other parts of Asia for its firm, crunchy texture.

Over the last 20 years, interest in cannonball jellyfish in the Gulf of California, Mexico exploded when Chinese investors saw that the area was a hot spot for the species.

“The suite of actors who are at play in this jellyfish fishery is extremely complex,” said Lucas Brotz, an honorary research associate at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries (IOF), postdoctoral fellow of the Sea Around Us initiative and lead author of a new paper, which details the history and failed management strategies of the fishery.

“There’s fishers who have permits, fishers who don’t have permits, fishery co-operatives, processing plant owners, the people who work in the processing plants, the brokers from Asia, academics, governmental managers, Indigenous groups that fish in their territorial waters — everyone shouting different information, politely arguing about when to open the fishery and how to manage it. It struck me that these jellyfish are such simple creatures, and it’s actually the humans that are difficult to manage.”

Cannonball Jellyfish (Stomolophus meleagris) by guppiecat, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The fishery is really two fisheries; one in the central gulf that contains blue-coloured cannonball jellyfish, and a northern fishery with amber-coloured cannonball jellyfish.

Fishers first cast their scoop nets in the central gulf, pursuing the blue jellyfish. From 2001 to 2015, catches either rose or stayed fairly consistent, with occasional drops, but they plummeted in 2016, possibly due to overexploitation. At its height, in 2011, the fishery caught almost 40,000 tonnes of jellyfish. Catches there have remained low since 2015, another peak year.

History could be repeating itself in the northern fishery, which became Mexico’s jellyfish fishing hub shortly after the decline of the blue jellyfish. This year saw an all-time high: 100,000 tonnes of jellyfish catch.

Both fisheries have been managed loosely, with little to no enforcement of rules limiting catch, the number of permits given to fishers, or size limits on smaller jellyfish. This has resulted in a “race to fish,” which encourages fishers to catch as many of the valuable jellyfish as possible without concern for the sustainability of a fishery that benefits the local economy.

The fact that the jellyfish are highly visible, move slowly and appear seasonally, means that they look like “money floating in the water,” according to the study, published in Marine Policy.

“It’s disheartening to see this all-too-familiar trajectory of ‘boom and bust,’ at least for the species in the central gulf,” Brotz said. “There were a number of good recommendations for how to manage this fishery—the first one being to take a precautionary approach and not catch too many before we know what the implications are. That was basically ignored.”

Further complicating matters, cannonball jellyfish populations vary dramatically.

By VOA – P. Graitcer – VOA, Public Domain

“You never know when they’re going to bloom, or where they are going to bloom, or how much there will be in a year,” said Miguel Cisneros, a co-author of the paper, former director of Mexico’s National Fisheries Institute, and fisheries researcher.

In order to keep these fisheries sustainable, Mexico needs more control over the price of jellyfish, as it is primarily in the hands of Chinese brokers, Cisneros said.

In addition, compliance to fishing rules must improve, fishers must cooperate with one another, and they must catch jellyfish only after they have spawned, which is when they enter the end of their life cycle.

“I have hope because there are negotiations happening between Mexico and China,” Cisneros said. “I think the main problem right now is the race for the jellyfish due to the strong incentive from the money coming from Asia. Otherwise, I think fishers would do the right things, even without officers enforcing the rules and regulation. They know it’s good for them to have a sustainable fishery.”

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Nearly 300 scientists ask the WTO to ban harmful fisheries subsidies

Two hundred and ninety scientific researchers from 46 countries, and 6 continents, are asking members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to take the bold step and pass a motion to ban harmful fisheries subsidies at their 12th Ministerial Conference that will take place from November 30 to December 3, 2021, in Geneva.

In an open letter, published in Science, and spearheaded by Dr. Rashid Sumaila, professor in the University of British Columbia’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries and School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, and Canada Research Chair in Interdisciplinary Ocean and Fisheries Economics, the scientists stated that the WTO is in the unique position to pass an effective international agreement that could eliminate subsidies for fuel, distant-water and destructive fishing fleets, and illegal and unregulated vessels.

Image by Ivan Khmelyuk from Pixabay

Citing a comprehensive body of research, the signatories stated that government payments that lower the cost of fuel and vessel construction; provide price support to keep market prices artificially high, and back fleets that plunder the high seas, only incentivize overcapacity and lead to overfishing. This, the scientists said, actively contravenes the aims of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 14, which is to “conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.”

In their view, the 164 states represented at the WTO could use their upcoming meeting to sign an agreement that forbids such harmful practices, while allowing special and differential treatments for small-scale, sustainably managed wild fisheries that support food and nutritional security, livelihoods, and cultures, particularly in low-income countries.

Further, the researchers said that such a deal should support low-income countries’ efforts to meet their commitments and transition to sustainable management. Finally, the agreement should require transparent data documentation and enforcement measures.

In addition to Sumaila, some of the high-profile signatories to the letter include the Sea Around Us principal investigator, Daniel Pauly (UBC Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries), Werner Antweiler (UBC Sauder School of Business), Philippe Cury (Institut de Recherche pour le Développement), Paul Ehrlich (Center for Conservation Biology, Stanford University), Michelle Tigchelaar (Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions), Natalie Ban (University of Victoria), Lisa Levin (Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California), Simon Levin (Princeton University), Elena Bennett (McGill University), Enric Sala (National Geographic, Pristine Seas), Karen C. Seto (Yale University), Paul Onyango (University of Dar es Salaam), Fiorenza Micheli (Hopkins Marine Station, Stanford University), Kristina Gjerde (IUCN Global Marine and Polar Programme), Christina Hicks (Lancaster University), Masahide Kaeriyama (Hokkaido University), Ibukun J. Adewumi (African Marine Environment Sustainability Initiative), and others.

Reference: Sumaila, UR et al. 2021. WTO must ban harmful fisheries subsidies. Science 374(6567): 544.

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What really makes fish become sexually active

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Shedding light on mysterious jellyfish diets

Jellyfish have voracious appetites, and they aren’t considered the most selective eaters. Almost anything that gets stuck to their tentacles winds up in the gelatinous sack that they use to digest their food.

This “take what comes” feeding strategy has clouded our understanding of which foods jellyfish survive on and how they fit in food webs. However, new research from the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries (IOF) used two biochemical tools, stable isotopes and fatty acids, to begin unlocking the secrets of jellyfish feeding.

Stable isotopes are naturally occurring isotopes of elements like carbon and nitrogen that exist in certain ratios in all living tissue. Similarly, fatty acids, which perform several critical physiological functions in the body, are produced in unique compositions by plants at the base of the food web. Unique isotope and fatty acid “signatures”, also known as “biomarkers”, get passed from prey to predator and can be used to trace food web connections and illuminate the makeup of an animal’s diet.

Isotope ratios and fatty acids concentrations change subtly in predictable ways as they travel through the food web. However, these changes, called “calibration values”, can vary from one organism to the next, and knowing an organism-specific calibration values is essential for accurately using biomarkers to investigate diets.

Measuring jellyfish ©Jessica Schaub

“Until now, jellyfish ecologists were using a generalized calibration value for these biomarkers because they didn’t have jellyfish-specific ones,” said Jessica Schaub, the study’s lead author and recent M.Sc. graduate at the IOF. “This study tested how much the concentrations of isotopes and fatty acids changed, and how quickly they were absorbed when jellyfish digested their prey and incorporated prey signatures into their bodies.”

“The numbers we found were different enough that it’s worth going back to previous jellyfish studies that applied the general values — they will likely get different results if they applied our values,” Schaub said.

In other words, jellyfish diets could look quite different than expected, and new studies might find that some jellyfish occupy a completely different position in the food web.

The study, published in the Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, was a partnership between IOF researchers and the Vancouver Aquarium.

Vancouver Aquarium staff cultured both jellyfish species and fed them two unique crustacean prey diets. The larger and more ferocious Japanese sea nettle were also fed the smaller, more common moon jellyfish. The researchers waited to see how long it took for the jellyfish to incorporate the stable isotopes and fatty acids, and then calculated how much the two biomarkers changed.

Japanese sea nettle ©Jessica Schaub

“It seems straightforward, but it’s never that easy — you get the data and you’re like, ‘what’s happening here?'” Schaub said. “We were surprised about the moon jellyfish. We fed them two crustaceans, krill and artemia, but they didn’t really incorporate the krill. We think of jellyfish as not being picky eaters, but in this case, it seemed that they didn’t like feeding on a single diet. Either it didn’t meet their nutritional needs, or they preferred the live artemia over the dead, frozen krill. The aquarium has been feeding them these krill for a long time, so it’s good to be able to tell the aquarium that it’s maybe not worth investing in the krill any longer.”

The study also found that the jellyfish appeared to “elongate” fatty acids. This means that jellyfish may be able to create their own essential omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, which are important for healthy body function. This was surprising as most animals cannot make these fatty acids from scratch but have to obtain them from their diets. The phenomenon has been described in a few other organisms, such as corals and sea sponges, but never in jellyfish.

The study’s authors hope that these findings will be a step towards better understanding the role that these understudied creatures play in marine ecosystems.

“Jellyfish have long been ignored in research, often considered more of a nuisance than an organism of interest”, said Dr. Brian Hunt, IOF professor and study co-author. “However, there is a growing awareness that they can play a key role as both predators and prey.”

Schaub will continue to build on this foundational research when she starts her doctoral thesis at the IOF in 2022. “I’m excited to see what we can learn about jellyfish using the biomarkers developed in this study, and I am particularly interested in their role as keystone species that shape marine ecosystems,” she said.

The study’s authors thank the Vancouver Aquarium for providing the jellyfish and assisting them with the experiment, and the Pacific Science Enterprise Center for their assistance in the fatty acid analysis.

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No apparent shortage of prey for southern resident killer whales in Canadian waters during summer

A southern resident killer whale seen from a drone swimming past a school of salmon near the mouth of the Fraser River. (photo. K. Holmes, Hakai Institute and University of British Columbia).

A popular belief that there are fewer Chinook salmon during the summer in Canadian waters for southern resident killer whales, compared to an abundance of fish for northern resident killer whales, has been debunked by a study led by scientists at the University of British Columbia.

In a paper published today in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, researchers report that the numbers of Chinook salmon in the Salish Sea in summertime are four to six times more abundant for southern resident killer whales than northern resident killer whales.

“People have been talking about a prey shortage as if it’s a fact, but this is the first study to quantify and compare the amount of their preferred prey, Chinook salmon, available to southern and northern resident killer whales,” said lead author Dr. Mei Sato (she/her), a research associate at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries at UBC at the time of the study, and now an assistant scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

A southern resident killer whale feeding with J-pod members near Vancouver on Chinook salmon returning to the Fraser River. (photo A.W. Trites, University of British Columbia).

While the small southern resident population numbered 73 individuals as of October 2021, the increasing northern resident population numbers around 300. In recent years, southern residents have also been returning later than normal to the inside coastal waters of British Columbia and Washington.

“Measurements from drone footage has shown the southern resident killer whales are thinner on average than the northern residents — which supports the common belief that the southern residents are experiencing a food shortage,” said co-author Dr. Andrew Trites (he/him), professor and director of the Marine Mammal Research Unit (MMRU) at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries at UBC. “Our findings suggest that this food shortage is probably not occurring during the summertime when they have traditionally fed in the Salish Sea.”

For the study, the team spent the summers of 2018 and 2019 surveying two areas known to be important foraging habitats for resident killer whales — the Johnstone Strait for northern residents and the Juan de Fuca Strait for southern residents — where killer whales intercept migrating Chinook salmon returning to the Salish Sea.

Using state-of-the-art fish finders, the team compared the number and size of Chinook salmon in the two straits.

Dr. Sato with echosounder equipment used to detect fish from onboard ship’ (photo A.W. Trites, University of British Columbia).

“We got help from sport and commercial fisherman, chartered fishing vessels and used echosounders to detect the number and size of fishes in the water,” said Dr. Sato. “Killer whales use a similar technique to locate the fish — only it’s much better than the electronic one we use because they can distinguish between different fish species in the water.”

The team collaborated with sport and commercial fisherman, the Sport Fishing Institute of British Columbia, and whale watching companies to design the survey and conduct fish sampling. The collaboration identified the best timing to conduct field work based on peak salmon availability and killer whale foraging behaviour.

The team also captured sample fish to validate the acoustic signals from their fish finder and distinguish between different fish species, as killer whales prefer larger, older Chinook salmon.

They found that while the distribution and sizes of fish were similar in both straits, there were four to six times as many fish in each patch in the Juan de Fuca Strait.

Estimating prey fields for resident killer whales is a tall order, and this is the first study to use acoustic surveys to estimate the relative abundance of large salmons in the Salish sea. Dr. Stéphane Gauthier (he/him), a scientist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, believes that these measurements should be expanded, and that this study highlights the importance of assessing salmon distribution at sea using hydro-acoustics methods.

Dr. Sato and a summer undergraduate student, Taryn Scarff, aboard ship surveying important foraging habitats for resident killer whales’ (photo A.W. Trites, University of British Columbia).

While the study looked at the availability of salmon, it did not assess other factors that might prevent the killer whales from catching the fish, such as higher vessel presence and noise in the Juan de Fuca Strait compared to Johnstone Strait.

Now that there is evidence that southern residents are not facing a prey shortage in their traditional summer feeding areas in Canadian waters, Dr. Sato and Dr. Trites agree that the focus of research efforts should be directed to other factors, areas and seasons.

“We don’t really know about prey availability outside of the Salish Sea and outside the summer season. To answer the question of whether there’s an overall prey shortage, we still need to figure out what’s happening during winter and spring, whether there are significant fluctuations year-to-year and in the different locations these whales travel to, like California,” said Dr. Sato.

The study was funded by Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

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Marine heatwaves could wipe out an extra six per cent of a country’s fish catches, costing millions their jobs

Extremely hot years will wipe out hundreds of thousands of tonnes of fish available for catch in a country’s waters in this century, on top of projected decreases to fish stocks from long-term climate change, a new UBC study predicts.

Researchers from the UBC Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries (IOF) used a complex model incorporating extreme annual ocean temperatures in Exclusive Economic Zones, where the majority of global fish catches occur, into climate-related projections for fish, fisheries and their dependent human communities.

Modelling a worst-case scenario where no action is taken to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions they projected a six per cent drop in the amount of potential catches per year and 77 per cent of exploited species are projected to decrease in biomass, or the amount of fish by weight in a given area, due to extremely hot years. These decreases are on top of those projected due to long-term decadal-scale climate change.

The numbers

  • In Pacific Canada, Sockeye salmon catches are projected to decrease by 26 per cent on average during a high temperature event between 2000 and 2050, an annual loss of 260 to 520 tonnes of fish. With losses due to climate change, when a temperature extreme occurs in the 2050s, the total decrease in annual catch would be more than 50 per cent or 530 to 1060 tonnes of fish
  • Peruvian anchoveta catches are projected to decline by 34 per cent during an extreme high temperature event between 2000 and 2050, or more than 900,000 tonnes per year. With climate change, a temperature extreme is projected to cost Peruvian anchoveta fisheries more than 1.5 million tonnes of their potential catch
  • Overall, a high temperature extreme event is projected to cause a 25 per cent drop in annual revenue for Peruvian anchoveta fisheries, or a loss of around US$600 million
  • Nearly three million jobs in the Indonesian fisheries-related sector are projected to be lost when a high temperature extreme occurs in their waters between 2000 and 2050
  • Some stocks are projected to increase due to these extreme events, and climate change, but not enough to mitigate the losses.

During extreme ocean temperature events and on top of projected temperature changes each decade, researchers projected that fisheries’ revenues would be cut by an average of three per cent globally, and employment by two percent; a potential loss of millions of jobs.

“These extreme annual temperatures will be an additional shock to an overloaded system,” said lead author Dr. William Cheung, professor and director of UBC’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries (IOF). “We see that in the countries where fisheries are already weakened by long-term changes, like ocean warming and deoxygenation, adding the shock of temperature extremes will exacerbate the impacts to a point that will likely exceed the capacity for these fisheries to adapt. It’s not unlike how COVID-19 stresses the healthcare system by adding an extra burden.”

Extreme temperature events are projected to occur more frequently in the future, says co-author Dr. Thomas Frölicher, professor at the climate and environmental physics division of the University of Bern. “Today’s marine heatwaves and their severe impacts on fisheries are bellwethers of the future as these events are generating environmental conditions that long-term global warming will not create for decades.”

Some areas will be worse hit than others, the researchers found, including EEZs in the Indo-Pacific region, particularly waters around South and Southeast Asia, and Pacific Islands; the Eastern Tropical Pacific, and area which runs along the Pacific coast of the Americas; and some countries in the West African region.

In Bangladesh, where fisheries-related sectors employ one-third of the country’s workforce, an extreme marine heat event is expected to cut two per cent — about one million — of the country’s fisheries jobs, in addition to the more than six million jobs that will be lost by 2050 due to long-term climate change.

The situation is similarly grim for Ecuador, where extreme high temperature events are projected to adversely impact an additional 10 per cent, or around US$100 million, of the country’s fisheries revenue on top of the 25 per cent reduction expected by the mid-21st century.

“This study really highlights the need to develop ways to deal with marine temperature extremes, and soon,” Cheung said. “These temperature extremes are often difficult to predict in terms of when and where they occur, particularly in the hot spots with limited capacity to provide robust scientific predictions for their fisheries. We need to consider that unpredictability when we plan for adaptations to long-term climate change.”

Cheung said that active fisheries management is vital. Potential adaptations include adjusting catch quotas in years when fish stocks are suffering from extreme temperature events, or, in severe cases, shuttering fisheries so that stocks can rebuild. “We need to have mechanisms in place to deal with it,” said Cheung.

It will be important to work with those affected by such adaptation options when developing them, as some decisions could exacerbate impacts on communities’ livelihoods, as well as food and nutrition security, said co-author Dr. Colette Wabnitz, an IOF research associate and lead scientist at the Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions. “Stakeholders are diverse, and include not only industry, but also Indigenous communities, small-scale fisheries and others. They should be involved in discussions about the effects of climate change and marine heatwaves as well as the design and implementation of solutions.”

The study “Marine high temperature extremes amplify the impacts of climate change on fish and fisheries” was published in the journal Science Advances.

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Towards sustainable, resilient and just food systems and the role of aquatic foods

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Dr. Daniel Pauly’s extraordinary life and work revealed in new book

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Countries likely missing out on revenue from catch share fisheries

Peruvian industrial purse seiners. ©Patricia Majluf

Despite harvesting an estimated global value of US$17.7 billion worth of fish, many catch share fisheries may be paying little or no royalties on their harvests, with countries likely foregoing this potential source of revenue, according to a new UBC study.

Introduced in the late 1970s to help struggling fisheries, catch shares allow governments to allocate parts of a total quota of fish stock in a country’s exclusive economic zone to a limited number of fishers or entities. While profitability and efficiency have largely improved under catch share programs, 13 out of 18 countries with such programs in place, including Canada, do not charge for the use of these natural resources, foregoing a potential stream of revenue. Of these 18, 17 had rent recovery mechanisms for oil, and16 had such mechanisms for natural gas.

“On average, these fisheries globally harvest around 19% of the global capture production, or 17.4 million tons, occupying a large fraction of the national harvest of some of the major fish producing countries, yet in most of the countries we looked at, they lack rent recovery mechanisms,” said lead author Dr. Abdulrahman Ben-Hasan, who conducted the research as a doctoral student at UBC’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries (IOF).

It is commonplace for other extractive industries such as forestry, oil, gas, and mining, to be charged for access or use of a resource, said Dr. Ben-Hasan, currently an assistant professor at the department of marine science at Kuwait University. “In general, well-established catch share fisheries are expected to operate at enhanced efficiency. It’s time governments considered the improved economic conditions of the fishing industry under catch shares. The adoption of catch share programs is expected to expand in the future, in part because of their economic benefits.”

The study estimated catch share programs’ harvests around the world were worth on aver-age US$17.7 billion from 2000 to 2017. The study focused on 18 countries, and found such programs were responsible for more than half of the national fish harvest in Peru, South Africa, Iceland, New Zealand, Canada, Russia, Chile, and Norway.
Of the countries that do collect some form of resource rent, Argentina, Australia, Iceland, Peru, and Russia charge fees based on the amount of harvest or landed value, while Chile and New Zealand raise some revenue by auctioning off certain catch quotas to fisheries.

“The fairest way that we see of doing this is to apply a tax that is proportional to the industry’s profitability,” said Santiago De la Puente, a doctoral student at IOF who co-authored the study. “We are not advocating to heavily tax the industry or cap their ability to make a profit. We are suggesting securing part of the wealth granted to corporations so it can come back to the state.”

In many cases, the costs for monitoring, surveillance and assessment of catch shares are shouldered by taxpayers, according to De la Puente. “We are losing, as a society. It costs us, and we are not getting what we deserve.”

Peruvian anchovies. ©Santiago de la Puente

Although taxing catch shares may be in the best interests of governments and citizens, the study’s authors believe the path to getting fair, equitable rent from the industry may be thorny.

“Generally, it would be impossible for the fishing industry to pay, and certainly so in Canada, as a failed government scheme has resulted in vast resources being ‘grandfathered’ to individuals or companies who in essence own the right to fish as a tradable commodity,” said Dr. Villy Christensen, an IOF professor and co-author of the study. “Those who actually fish can barely make a living — either they have to pay a lease fee to the rights-holders, or they have invested heavily to buy the rights. There are solutions to this, but they call for government actions – but solutions have to be found if we are to have viable fisheries that produce public benefits.”

The study “Constrained public benefits from catch share fisheries” was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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