Executive summary: Sustainable fishing policies and demand reductions for wild-caught aquatic animals may counterintuitively increase fishing catch in the near term, but persistent demand reductions could potentially decrease catch over longer timelines.
Key points:
Reducing fishing pressure allows more fish to be caught in the long run where there is overfishing.
Sustainable fishery management policies generally aim to maximize or maintain high catch levels, not reduce catch.
In the near term (10-20 years), demand reductions seem slightly more likely to increase than decrease catch, given the current prevalence of overfishing.
Over longer timelines, demand reductions may decrease catch as overfishing is eliminated and with eventual human population decline, but this is uncertain.
Efforts to reduce demand today could be made redundant by large independent drops in demand from factors like catastrophes or technological advances.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.
Executive summary: Sustainable fishing policies and demand reductions for wild-caught aquatic animals may counterintuitively increase fishing catch in the near term, but persistent demand reductions could potentially decrease catch over longer timelines.
Key points:
Reducing fishing pressure allows more fish to be caught in the long run where there is overfishing.
Sustainable fishery management policies generally aim to maximize or maintain high catch levels, not reduce catch.
In the near term (10-20 years), demand reductions seem slightly more likely to increase than decrease catch, given the current prevalence of overfishing.
Over longer timelines, demand reductions may decrease catch as overfishing is eliminated and with eventual human population decline, but this is uncertain.
Efforts to reduce demand today could be made redundant by large independent drops in demand from factors like catastrophes or technological advances.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.