Impact

Together with the other indicators under SDG 14, it will form a picture of marine activity giving countries intelligence on optimum levels of fishing, aquaculture expansion and fair and secure access to living aquatic resources.

Key results

The sustainability of global fishery resources continues to decline, although the rate of decline has decelerated in recent years.

Oceans are the world’s largest ecosystem, supporting the livelihoods of millions of people and supplying a sizable proportion of animal proteins worldwide. However, the sustainability of fishery resources is a cause for concern.

The sustainability of global fishery resources continues to decline, from 90 percent in 1974 to 64.5 percent in 2021. Global marine fish landings have remained relatively stable in 2021, averaging 80 million tonnes since 1995. When weighed by their production levels, approximately 77.2 percent of the fishery landings in the base year (2021) were estimated to be from biologically sustainable stocks. The decreasing trend since 2019 continues the declining trend since 1974. However, the global trend is not universal, and FAO regions vary from 35 percent to 92 percent.

Among the 15 FAO Major Fishing Areas reviewed, the Southeast Pacific (area 87) had the highest percentage (64.9 percent) of stocks fished at unsustainable levels (35.1 percent sustainably fished), followed by the Mediterranean and Black Sea (area 37) at 53.6 percent fished at unsustainable levels (46.4 percent fished sustainably), the Northwest Pacific (area 61) at 52.3 percent unsustainably fished (47.7 percent sustainably fished) and the Eastern Central Atlantic (area 34) at 47.1 percent unsustainable levels (52.9 percent sustainable). In contrast, the Eastern Central Pacific (area 77), Northeast Atlantic (area 27), Pacific Northeast (area 67) and Southwest Pacific (area 81) had the lowest proportion (8–27 percent) of stocks fished at biologically unsustainable levels (or between 72–92 percent sustainably fished). Other areas varied between 31 percent and 42 percent of unsustainable levels in 2021 (or between 58 and 70 percent sustainably fished).

Elearning

Multimedia

Capacity development

Methodology

Tier: I

Data

Data collection

Related publications

External links