The Spatial Expansion and Ecological Footprint of Fisheries (1950 to Present)
Using estimates of the primary production required (PPR) to support fisheries catches (a measure of the footprint of fishing), we analyzed the geographical expansion of the global marine fisheries from 1950 to 2005. We used multiple threshold levels of PPR as percentage of local primary production t...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:2996307 2023-05-15T13:54:28+02:00 The Spatial Expansion and Ecological Footprint of Fisheries (1950 to Present) Swartz, Wilf Sala, Enric Tracey, Sean Watson, Reg Pauly, Daniel 2010-12-02 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2996307 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21151994 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0015143 en eng Public Library of Science http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2996307 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21151994 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0015143 Swartz et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. CC-BY Research Article Text 2010 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0015143 2013-09-03T08:23:10Z Using estimates of the primary production required (PPR) to support fisheries catches (a measure of the footprint of fishing), we analyzed the geographical expansion of the global marine fisheries from 1950 to 2005. We used multiple threshold levels of PPR as percentage of local primary production to define ‘fisheries exploitation’ and applied them to the global dataset of spatially-explicit marine fisheries catches. This approach enabled us to assign exploitation status across a 0.5° latitude/longitude ocean grid system and trace the change in their status over the 56-year time period. This result highlights the global scale expansion in marine fisheries, from the coastal waters off North Atlantic and West Pacific to the waters in the Southern Hemisphere and into the high seas. The southward expansion of fisheries occurred at a rate of almost one degree latitude per year, with the greatest period of expansion occurring in the 1980s and early 1990s. By the mid 1990s, a third of the world's ocean, and two-thirds of continental shelves, were exploited at a level where PPR of fisheries exceed 10% of PP, leaving only unproductive waters of high seas, and relatively inaccessible waters in the Arctic and Antarctic as the last remaining ‘frontiers.’ The growth in marine fisheries catches for more than half a century was only made possible through exploitation of new fishing grounds. Their rapidly diminishing number indicates a global limit to growth and highlights the urgent need for a transition to sustainable fishing through reduction of PPR. Text Antarc* Antarctic Arctic North Atlantic PubMed Central (PMC) Antarctic Arctic Pacific PLoS ONE 5 12 e15143 |
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Research Article Swartz, Wilf Sala, Enric Tracey, Sean Watson, Reg Pauly, Daniel The Spatial Expansion and Ecological Footprint of Fisheries (1950 to Present) |
topic_facet |
Research Article |
description |
Using estimates of the primary production required (PPR) to support fisheries catches (a measure of the footprint of fishing), we analyzed the geographical expansion of the global marine fisheries from 1950 to 2005. We used multiple threshold levels of PPR as percentage of local primary production to define ‘fisheries exploitation’ and applied them to the global dataset of spatially-explicit marine fisheries catches. This approach enabled us to assign exploitation status across a 0.5° latitude/longitude ocean grid system and trace the change in their status over the 56-year time period. This result highlights the global scale expansion in marine fisheries, from the coastal waters off North Atlantic and West Pacific to the waters in the Southern Hemisphere and into the high seas. The southward expansion of fisheries occurred at a rate of almost one degree latitude per year, with the greatest period of expansion occurring in the 1980s and early 1990s. By the mid 1990s, a third of the world's ocean, and two-thirds of continental shelves, were exploited at a level where PPR of fisheries exceed 10% of PP, leaving only unproductive waters of high seas, and relatively inaccessible waters in the Arctic and Antarctic as the last remaining ‘frontiers.’ The growth in marine fisheries catches for more than half a century was only made possible through exploitation of new fishing grounds. Their rapidly diminishing number indicates a global limit to growth and highlights the urgent need for a transition to sustainable fishing through reduction of PPR. |
format |
Text |
author |
Swartz, Wilf Sala, Enric Tracey, Sean Watson, Reg Pauly, Daniel |
author_facet |
Swartz, Wilf Sala, Enric Tracey, Sean Watson, Reg Pauly, Daniel |
author_sort |
Swartz, Wilf |
title |
The Spatial Expansion and Ecological Footprint of Fisheries (1950 to Present) |
title_short |
The Spatial Expansion and Ecological Footprint of Fisheries (1950 to Present) |
title_full |
The Spatial Expansion and Ecological Footprint of Fisheries (1950 to Present) |
title_fullStr |
The Spatial Expansion and Ecological Footprint of Fisheries (1950 to Present) |
title_full_unstemmed |
The Spatial Expansion and Ecological Footprint of Fisheries (1950 to Present) |
title_sort |
spatial expansion and ecological footprint of fisheries (1950 to present) |
publisher |
Public Library of Science |
publishDate |
2010 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2996307 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21151994 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0015143 |
geographic |
Antarctic Arctic Pacific |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic Arctic Pacific |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Arctic North Atlantic |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Arctic North Atlantic |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2996307 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21151994 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0015143 |
op_rights |
Swartz et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0015143 |
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PLoS ONE |
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5 |
container_issue |
12 |
container_start_page |
e15143 |
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1766260406144204800 |