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Comment est-ce que on peut diminuer la pollution générée par l'industrie de la pêche ?

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“What Is Overfishing? Facts, Effects and Overfishing Solutions.” Worldwidelife.Org/Threats/Overfishing, www.worldwildlife.org/threats/overfishing. Accessed 28 Apr. 2025.

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Igini, Martina. “7 Solutions to Overfishing We Need Right Now.” Earth.Org, 4 Mar. 2024, earth.org/solutions-to-overfishing/.

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The average person eats nearly double the amount of seafood as half a century ago. To satisfy the rapidly growing demand, global production of fish has quadrupled over the past 50 years. This, however, has come with alarming exploitation rates on fish stocks across the world and unsustainable levels of wild fish catch, making overfishing one of the biggest environmental problems of our lifetime. As we reflect on this practice's detrimental effects, we explore the most effective solutions to overfishing.-
What is Overfishing?

Overfishing is, in some sense, a rational reaction to increasing market needs for fish. Since the 1960s, the world's population has nearly quadrupled. With it came a revolution in lifestyle and food habits.

Nowadays, people consume more than twice as much seafood as they did 50 years ago, with per capita aquatic food consumption growing from an average 9.9 kilograms to a staggering 20.2 kilograms in 2020.

The fish market is now valued at US$406 billion and global fisheries and aquaculture production has reached an all-time high of 214 million metric tons in 2020 - according to the UN State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture Report 2022.

Unsurprisingly, the rising demand for seafood resulted in a steady decline in fishery resources due to overfishing, pollution, poor management, and other factors. Today, less than 65% of stocks are considered to be fished within biologically sustainable levels, with the remaining part being classified as "overfished". This me ans that the stock of available fishing waters is being depleted faster than it can be replaced. The report also categorises more than 57% of all stocks as "maximally sustainably fished" and only 7% of stocks as "underfished."

Figure 1: Global trends in the state of the world's marine fishery stocks

On a better note, the UN's flagship report found a slight improvement in the number of landings from biologically sustainable stocks, which experienced a slight decrease from 2017, currently sitting at 64.6%.

While this data suggests that effective fisheries management has been proven successful in rebuilding stocks and increasing catches within ecosystem boundaries, the road to restoring ecosystems to a healthy and productive state while protecting the long-term supply of marine foods is still long.

We explore some of the best and most effective solutions to overfishing.
You might also like: 15 Facts About Overfishing
Solutions to Overfishing

1. Ban Fishing Subsidies

Subsidies for fuel, fishing gear, and building new vessels notoriously incentivise overfishing and represent thus a huge problem. They often benefit large-scale fishing companies which indirectly encourage the use of fuel-intensive fishing and destructive fishing practices such as deep-sea trawling. Furthermore, researchers found that illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing is sometimes related to more serious problems like human trafficking and slavery at sea.

In June 2022, the World Trade Organization (WTO) secured a historic deal aimed at curbing fishing subsidies and reducing global overfishing. The landmark Fisheries Agreement introduces new rules to help preserve the world's oceans, boost falling fishing stocks, and protect the countless communities around the world whose livelihoods depend on marine resources. The accord will see countries working together to ban subsidies to IUU fishing and restrict subsidies for stocks that are already overfished. The text allows for subsidies as long as they are implemented to rebuild the fishing stock to a "biologically sustainable level" and it includes measures to enhance transparency and accountability of governments on how they subsidise the industry.

2. Adopt Rights-Based Fishery Management

A much needed solution to overfishing is the adoption of rights-based fishery management tools. According to the World Wildlife (WWF) , such approach can transform global fisheries performance and help achieve a balance between economic, ecological, and social needs around the world. In short, rights-based management (RBM) entitles an entity - such as a person, community, company, or fishing vessel - to fish in a particular place at a particular time. While guaranteeing such entities a certain portion of the catch, they are also required to adhere to certain limits, which range from a limit on how much fish they can catch to specific timeframes and seasons in which fishing is allowed.

One of the most effective policies to reduce overfishing are catch-share programmes , which give out harvest allowances to individuals or companies. These not only help incentivise smarter and timelier fishing rather than a race to catch as much as stock possible but they also promote a healthy balance between the needs of people, the ocean, and the economy and can guarantee healthier fish populations.

3. Apply Regulations on Fishing Nets

By-catching refers to the event of unwanted marine animal species being caught in fisher's nets as a byproduct, a practice that has increased tremendously since overfishing became such a huge issue. The gigantic nets trawled around the world's oceans everyday catch thousands of untargeted marine species, including sea turtles, birds and sharks.

To tackle this issue, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) implemented a simple solution : placing the top end of the nets two meters lower, a move that has been shown to effectively reduce the mortality of marine mammal bycatch by 98% in places like the Indian Ocean. This and other regulations aimed at preventing or discouraging by-catch will help keep the environments that fishers work in healthy.

4. Protect Essential Predator Species

and tuna are some of the marine animal species most prone to overfishing. Labeled as essential predators, these animals lay a vital role in maintaining local ecosystems. Without them, issues such as overpopulation, algal bloom, and other serious environmental problems would arise. For this reason, one of the best solutions to overfishing is Sharks promoting programmes and policies that protect these vulnerable species from being caught by fishing vessels. 90% of blue sharks , for example, are mistakenly caught by fishers every year despite not being commercially valuable. It is estimated that one-third of shark species face extinction because of overfishing, bycatch, pollution, and habitat loss.
You might also like: Shark Liver Oil: The Beauty Industry's Secret Ingredient
The FAO has successfully launched a programme to protect threatened deep-sea marine life by supporting new assessment protocols in designated areas before any fishing activities can begin.

5. Increase Marine Protected Areas and Enhance Controls

Based on current UN estimates , there are more than 15,000 Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in the world, comprising approximately 27 million square kilometres (almost 10.6 million square miles) - or nearly 7.5% of the ocean, an area the size of North America. In such areas, tight regulations restrict or often prohibit commercial fishing and other potentially harmful activities altogether.

However, experts believe that governments around the world should put more effort in expanding MPAs - given that 92% of the world's oceans are still unprotected. This is arguably one of the most effective solutions to overfishing and could contribute greatly to meeting the IUCN recommendation of protecting at least 30% of the ocean by 2030.

6. Require Traceability Standards

Among the best solutions to overfishing is also the introduction of traceability standards. As it was highlighted in the 2022 State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture Report , traceability systems represent a crucial effort toward transparent and responsible value chains . Having such standards in place would "allow a product to be followed from its origin to the end market, informing about compliance with many fisheries regulations as well as food safety and certification requirements."

Traceability standards have been ensured in the past through the adoption of so-called catch documentation schemes (CDS), issuing certificates and trade documents validated by trustworthy national authorities to establish whether a product has been legally sourced, and certifying that the catch was sourced in compliance with all applicable requirements. FAO has been constantly working to support national authorities in understanding and implementing these schemes.

7. Impose A Ban on Fishing in International Waters

According to Our World In Data , 99% of international waters that do not belong to any single country - also called 'high seas' - are unprotected. Given the effectiveness of protected waters in saving fish population and the current lack of regulation of fishing in international waters, introducing a ban on fishing in open seas would likely be an extremely effective overfishing solution .
Figure 2: Share of Ocean Area that is Protected, 2021 You might also like: WTO Bans Fishing Subsidies in Historic Deal to Reduce Global Overfishing
In 2017, nine nations including Japan, China, and South Korea as well as the European Union agreed on a historic deal to place the central Arctic Ocean (CAO) - an area of nearly 3 million square kilometres (1.2 million square miles) - off-limits to commercial fishers for at least the next 16 years. Moreover, the FAO launched the Common Oceans Program, a plan to regulate fishing in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ), which comprise 40% of the planet's surface. The programme successfully reduced tuna overfishing and banned fishing from critically vulnerable areas.

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7 Solutions to Overfishing We Need Right Now | Earth.Org

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We are exploiting fish stocks at an alarming rate and we have reached unsustainable levels of wild fish catch. What are the best solutions to overfishing?

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US Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “How Does Overfishing Threaten Coral Reefs?” NOAA’s National Ocean Service, 23 June 2016, oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/coral-overfishing.html.

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Surpêche, pollution et changement climatique

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Surpêche, pollution et changement climatique

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Planet, One Green. “Overfishing, Pollution, & Climate Change: Fish Are in Trouble.” Vancouver Humane Society, 3 Aug. 2021, vancouverhumanesociety.bc.ca/learning-resources/fish/trouble/.

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Bottom trawling: a large net with heavy weights is dragged across the seafloor, scooping up everything in its path and damaging sensitive marine habitats. Longlining: Boats use lines that can extend for up to 50 miles, with thousands of baited hooks branching off from the main line.

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La niveau de pollution et d'autres facteurs

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La niveau de pollution et d'autres facteurs

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Withers, Paul. “Research Finds Fishing Gear a Major Source of Ocean Microplastics in Atlantic Canada | CBC News.” CBCnews, CBC/Radio Canada, 7 July 2020, www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/chemical-analysis-confirms-polymers-used-fishing-gear-1.5637243.

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Two years ago, researchers collected microplastics from pristine surface waters at three nearshore locations in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, finding tiny and unrecognizable fragments, threads and fibres in every trawl.

Chemical analysis has now identified the synthetic polymers that made up those miniscule pieces of plastic and confirmed what was expected: the microplastics were shed from easily recognized sources.

"Fishing gear, fishing rope, fragments of nets and particles that would come from that kind of activity, that is a big source of microplastics," said Ariel Smith, the coastal and marine team lead for Coastal Action, the environmental group that is leading a three-year Atlantic Canadian microplastics research project.

The microplastics also come from common single-use items that people use every day, Smith said, as well as fragments from things like packaging.

"It's really important that we think of microplastics in the larger context. These microplastics don't just end up there. They didn't start as these tiny things that are less than five millimetres in size," she said.

The three-year study is funded with a $218,000 grant from Environment and Climate Change Canada. The goal is to provide a first-ever estimate of the quantity of microplastics in the ocean in Atlantic Canada.

Surface water samples were collected in Nova Scotia from the mouth of Lunenburg harbour, the LaHave River Estuary and the Annapolis Basin. They were also gathered from the Bay of Islands and Humber Arm in western Newfoundland.

The analysis found more than 20 different chemical bonds in the samples. Other findings included:

Annapolis Basin sampling sites were 15 per cent polypropylene (rope, packaging, containers), 15 per cent polyethylene (bags, cups, bottles) and 10 per cent polyethylene/terephthalate (plastic bottles, polyester).

Lunenburg County sampling sites were 16 per cent polyethylene, 15 per cent polypropylene and 13 per cent polystyrene (Styrofoam).

Humber Arm, N.L., sampling sites were 30 per cent polypropylene, 11 per cent polyethylene and eight per cent polyamide (nylon).

The study also included sampling for microplastics in beach sediment at all locations, but a chemical analysis has not been released on those samples.

'Even more than we thought we'd find,' says researcher

A recent update on the project notes microplastics are ingested throughout the food chain and can have both physical and chemical impacts on aquatic life.

Smith said she expected to see microplastics, but not on every trawl.

"It definitely was even more so than we thought we would find ... they end up ubiquitously across the marine environment," she said.

A coalition of industry, government and NGOs called the Fishing Gear Coalition of Atlantic Canada has 20 projects underway to address lost gear, from testing ropeless traps to retrieval operations.

The government of Nova Scotia acknowledges the microplastics problem, calling it "a growing global concern for all marine environments, and plastics used in fishing gear is one of a myriad of sources, as the study has noted."

Dan Davis, with the Nova Scotia Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture, said in an email the provincial government is taking steps to remove marine debris before it can break down in the environment.

"The province is a partner with other provinces and the federal government on a zero plastic waste strategy, which looks holistically at ways to reduce single use plastics and microplastics in the environment," he said.

"The province recognizes the importance of clean ocean waters and, through its new marine debris cleanup program, supports the fish and seafood industry to work in partnership with others to do beach and ocean cleanups."
Read Coastal Action's report: MORE TOP STORIES

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Research finds fishing gear a major source of ocean microplastics in Atlantic Canada | CBC News

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Two years ago, researchers collected microplastics from pristine surface waters at three nearshore locations in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, finding tiny and unrecognizable fragments, threads and fibres in every trawl. Chemical analysis has now identified the synthetic polymers that made up those miniscule pieces of plastic and confirmed what was expected: the microplastics were shed from easily recognized sources.

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“Overfishing Infographic: Infographic Poster, Infographic, Teaching.” Pinterest, 9 June 2022, www.pinterest.com/pin/overfishing-infographic--5207355811547162/.

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Comment est-ce que on peut diminuer la pollution générée par l'industrie de la pêche ?

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Comment est-ce que on peut diminuer la pollution générée par l'industrie de la pêche ?

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L'industrie de la pêche génère presque la majorité de la pollution marine. Selon une étude en Nouvelle-Écosse, les polymères comme le polyéthylène et le polypropylène, qui sont utilisés dans les lignes de pêche et les filets, sont trouvés sous formes des micro plastiques dans l'océan. Pour réduire ce type de pollution, nous devons changer des matériaux de pêches aux matériels plus durables et ne jetez pas les choses qu'ils considèrent

les déchets dans l'océan. Quelque chose d'autre qu'ils pourraient commencer à faire, c'est de nettoyer l'océan chaque mois pour aider à diminuer la pollution à laquelle ils contribuent

Une autre façon à diminuer la pollution qui vient de la pêche est de commencer des pratiques de pêche durable et impliquer plus de lois à propos de la montante que tu peux pêcher et où. Un article de "earth.Org" a des idées pour plusieurs solutions/adaptations, comme la crée les zones protégées et avoir plus de surveillance pour réduire la pêche illégale. De plus, impliquant plus de réglementations sur les filets et les types de filets peuvent réduire le nombre d'espèces capturées par accident et aider à réduire les espèces qui va éteinte.

Enfin, il n'y a pas seulement un changement pour réduire la pollution marine, même pas juste 10 façons, car toutes les petites choses qu'on fait va ajouter à un grand changement. Mais les choses comme faire plus de lois à propos où tu peux pêcher et de combien poisson tu peux pêcher, augmenter les zones protéger et mettre plus de régulations sur l'équipement qu'ils utilisent et comment c'est disposé. Je sais que la majorité que je parle à propos de c'est la pêche commerciale, mais les un qui pêche pour s'amuser aussi cause beaucoup de pollution lorsque c'est avec le gaz du bateau ou si tu tues trop de poissons par accident. Alors, je te demande d'être plus attentif de la façon dont vous ferez les choses la prochaine fois que vous serez sur l'eau.