1 August 2024

01 August 2024, Rome – A set of voluntary guidelines for the sustainable management of deep-sea fisheries and the protection of seafloor habitats adopted in 2008 have led to profound changes in the way that bottom fisheries are managed, a new FAO-report says. Environmental protection has improved and stocks have stabilised, although their long-term conservation needs more attention.

"This is a landmark report showing how international cooperation has enabled drastic steps to reduce the impact of fisheries on deep-sea ecosystems,” said Manuel Barange, FAO Assistant Director-General and Director of the Fisheries and Aquaculture Division. “It sends an important message that the high seas are not unregulated and offers real prospects for sustainable management of deep-sea fish stocks.”

The report examines the implementation of the International Guidelines for the Management of Deep-sea Fisheries in the High Seas, also known as the Deep-sea fisheries guidelines, adopted by FAO in 2008 to make bottom fisheries more sustainable and less harmful to the environment.

It concludes that many of the voluntary measures for more sustainable management proposed in the guidelines have been adopted by Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (RFMOs), the international bodies responsible for sustainable fisheries of the ocean’s high seas areas that are outside of national jurisdictions.

“As one of the first RFMOs to implement bottom fisheries closures to protect VMEs followed by precautionary deep-sea fisheries measures, we in NEAFC, together with our sibling RFMOs, have made real progress towards minimizing impacts of deep-sea fisheries on biodiversity,” said Darius Campbell, Executive Secretary of the North-East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC), adding: “Nevertheless, we recognize there is more to do, in particular related to managing deep sea stocks.”

VME’s, stocks, bycatch and MCS

The maps in FAO’s Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems database confirm that a dramatic shift has taken place in deep-sea fisheries management in the high seas over the last two decades.

Between 2000 and 2024, the high seas areas managed by RFMO’s have more than tripled in size, from 57 million km2 to 183 million km2. Similarly, 170 million km2, or 87 percent of the high sea areas, was open for deep-sea fishing in 2000. This dropped to 29 million km2 in 2024, or less than 15 percent.

The report also shows that important strides were made to protect vulnerable marine ecosystems (VMEs) from the impact of bottom fishing, including measures to minimize encounters with VMEs in the course of fishing activities.

VMEs are unique seafloor habitats containing rare species, including coral and sponges. Currently, over 1.2 million km2 are closed to bottom fishing, a significant achievement considering that the first VME was designated in 2005.

The report also notes that a lot more is known about where vessels are fishing and what they catch thanks to increased monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS).

RFMO’s have introduced a wide variety of MCS measures, including on-board observers, electronic monitoring and satellite-based vessel monitoring systems, and measures to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

More attention is needed to ensure the conservation and long-term sustainability of deep-sea fish stocks and to reduce bycatch, the report says. The setting of catch limits has proven to be highly complicated, because of the limited availability of data on deep-sea fish stocks and on bycatch species such as deepwater sharks. Consequently, it is often hard to assess their status and develop adequate management plans.

“We also need to know more about the impact of climate change on deep-sea species, used to living in very stable environments,” said FAO Deep-sea fisheries expert Anthony Thompson, one of the lead authors of the report. He concluded: “With long-term management plans and collective action, sustainable deep-sea fisheries and catch increases can be achieved.”

Collapse and slow recovery

Deep-sea fisheries take place between depths of 200 and 1500 meters, targeting bottom-dwelling species on continental shelves, seamounts and ocean ridges with fishing gear that comes into contact with the seafloor. 

Deep-sea fisheries occur in less than 3 per cent of the high seas. They often target slow growing species that can only sustain low exploitation rates.

A period of overfishing in the 1970–1990s led to the collapse of many deep-sea fish stocks and caused considerable damage to seafloor habitats, prompting international calls for action which led to the adoption of the Deep-sea Fisheries Guidelines in 2008.

Following dramatic decline in the early 2000s, catches have stabilized at much lower levels, presenting signs of slow recovery. In 2020, landed deep-sea catches amounted to 224 000 tonnes.

More on the Deep-sea fisheries project

The review has been carried out by the Common Oceans Deep-sea fisheries project that promotes responsible deep-sea fisheries management and biodiversity conservation in the high seas.

Funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), led by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and executed by the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM), it works in collaboration with the seven deep-sea RFMOs, the private sector, and international organizations.

Links

• Review of the implementation of the International Guidelines for the Management of Deep-sea Fisheries in the High Seas
• International Guidelines for the Management of Deep-sea Fisheries in the High Seas.
• FAO Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems Database
• Common Oceans Program/