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Review
. 2010 Sep 27;365(1554):2869-80.
doi: 10.1098/rstb.2010.0171.

Food security and marine capture fisheries: characteristics, trends, drivers and future perspectives

Serge M Garcia  1 , Andrew A Rosenberg
Affiliations
Review

Food security and marine capture fisheries: characteristics, trends, drivers and future perspectives

Serge M Garcia et al. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. .

Abstract

World population is expected to grow from the present 6.8 billion people to about 9 billion by 2050. The growing need for nutritious and healthy food will increase the demand for fisheries products from marine sources, whose productivity is already highly stressed by excessive fishing pressure, growing organic pollution, toxic contamination, coastal degradation and climate change. Looking towards 2050, the question is how fisheries governance, and the national and international policy and legal frameworks within which it is nested, will ensure a sustainable harvest, maintain biodiversity and ecosystem functions, and adapt to climate change. This paper looks at global fisheries production, the state of resources, contribution to food security and governance. It describes the main changes affecting the sector, including geographical expansion, fishing capacity-building, natural variability, environmental degradation and climate change. It identifies drivers and future challenges, while suggesting how new science, policies and interventions could best address those challenges.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
World capture and aquaculture production. Black, China; grey, world excluding China. Source: FAO (2009).
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
World capture fisheries production. Dark grey, China; light grey, world excluding China. Source: FAO (2009).
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Chronology of resource development phases in 169 national fishing areas (1950–2006). Source: Garcia (2009a,b).
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Distribution of annual landings (average 1998–2002) by category of resource state in FAO terminology. U, undeveloped; M, moderately developed; F, fully developed; O, overfished; D/R, depleted and recovering. Data source: FAO (2009).
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
World fish utilization and supply. Dark grey bars, food; light grey bars, non-food uses; light grey line, population; dark grey line, food supply. Source: FAO (2009).
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