Overfishing and the Common Fisheries Policy: (un)successful results from TAC regulation?

AbstractThis paper combines official data from 1990–2007 for (i) the Total Allowable Catchs(TACs) recommended by International Council for the Exploration for the Sea (ICES)scientists and the proposed and approved TACs and (ii) biomass, recruitment, catches,fishing effort, and current exploitation rates for all marine populations subjected toTAC regulation. The differences between the fishing quotas and the scientificrecommendations provided by the ICES were calculated to be 19% after the first CFPreform (1992–2001) and 21% after the second one (2002–2008). In some species,these differences showed a three-fold increase, in particular those currentlyconsidered to be beyond the biological safety limits.Regarding the most important index of abundance, the results also indicate abiomass and recruitment reduction of 75–85% of the stocks and 90% of catches,whereas the fishing mortality increased in 35% of stocks. In addition, of allpopulations analysed under TAC regulation, 20% presents an increase in the currentexploitation rate, 17% did not show significant changes, and the remaining 63%presented a reduction between 1990 and 2007. These results could contribute to therecovery of stocks. However, following the methodology used by Worm et al. whoreported that 6 out of the 10 (60%) marine ecosystems examined showed currentexploitation rate values that were significantly higher than those that provide themaximum sustainable yield, this study demonstrates that 86% of the populationsregulated by TACs present values higher than exploitation rates that give maximumsustainable yield, following an alarming pattern of exploitation.Keywords Common Fisheries Policy, global assessment, impact of TAC regulation,overexploitation of fishery resources