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.
The proportion of global fishery resources at biologically sustainable levels has declined from 90 percent in 1974 to 64.6 percent in 2019. Meanwhile, global marine fish landings have remained relatively stable at around 80 million tonnes since 1995. Fish stocks with biologically sustainable levels constituted 82.5 percent of total landings of assessed fish stocks in 2019. Although this share continues to decline, the rate of decline has slowed down over the past decade.
The proportion of sustainable fish stocks varies greatly between different regions. In 2019, the Southeast Pacific surpassed the Mediterranean and the Black Sea as the marine region with the highest percentage of stocks fished at unsustainable levels (66.7 percent). It was followed by the Mediterranean and the Black Sea (63.4 percent) and the Southwest Atlantic (46.7 percent). The Eastern Central Pacific, Southwest Pacific, Northeast Pacific and Western Central Pacific had the lowest proportion (13 to 21 percent) of stocks fished at biologically unsustainable levels.