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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Sarah Coulthard, Ainsley Hatt, Phoebe Lewis, Professor Tim Gray, Jack Longsden
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© 2025 The Author(s). Fish and Fisheries published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.Sustainable commercial fishing makes valuable contributions to coastal regions and broader national benefits. This paper offers three arguments in relation to what is required for the societal benefits of sustainable fisheries to be fully realised and considers each in the context of the UK but with global relevance. First, there is a need to raise the profile of the full range of benefits that are delivered through sustainable fisheries to coastal communities and the broader public. In the UK, the delivery of a ‘national benefit’ objective through fisheries is now enshrined in law by the Fisheries Act, 2020; we operationalise this through a new framing that distils eight ‘national benefits’ that all sustainable fisheries should deliver. Second, better acknowledgement of what society gains from sustainable fisheries must be paralleled with recognition of what society is simultaneously at risk of losing through the decline of the fishing fleet. We detail this decline in a new analysis of long-term UK data, which highlights that the decline is unequally felt, with some regions of the UK, and small-scale fishing sectors, experiencing loss more acutely. This reality leads us to argue a third point, that if society is to retain and truly harness the benefits that flow from sustainable fisheries, governing bodies must act quickly to ensure that fisheries are environmentally sustainable, diverse and inclusive, pursuing fisheries that ‘leave no one behind’.
Author(s): Coulthard S, Hatt A, Lewis P, Stewart BD, Roach M, Clark R, Fanshawe S, White CS, Urquhart J, Percy J, Gray T, Bulled E, Richards J, Turner R, Baker E, Evans L, Chaigneau T, Hooper T, Longsden J, Anbleyth-Evans J
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Fish and Fisheries
Year: 2025
Pages: epub ahead of print
Online publication date: 10/04/2025
Acceptance date: 20/02/2025
Date deposited: 24/04/2025
ISSN (print): 1467-2960
ISSN (electronic): 1467-2979
Publisher: John Wiley and Sons Inc
URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/faf.12898
DOI: 10.1111/faf.12898
Data Access Statement: All data used in the assessment of fishing fleet decline is publicly available online via the Seafish fleet survey database, as referenced in the article.
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