Fishery can mean either the enterprise of raising or harvesting fish and other aquatic life or, more commonly, the site where such enterprise takes place. Commercial fisheries include wild fisheries and fish farms, both in freshwater waterbodies and the oceans. About 500 million people worldwide are economically dependent on fisheries. 171 million tonnes of fish were produced in 2016, but overfishing is an increasing problem, causing declines in some populations.
A conventional idea of a sustainable fishery is that it is one that is harvested at a sustainable rate, where the fish population does not decline over time because of fishing practices. Sustainability in fisheries combines theoretical disciplines, such as the population dynamics of fisheries, with practical strategies, such as avoiding overfishing through techniques such as individual fishing quotas, curtailing destructive and illegal fishing practices by lobbying for appropriate law and policy, setting up protected areas, restoring collapsed fisheries, incorporating all externalities involved in harvesting marine ecosystems into fishery economics, educating stakeholders and the wider public, and developing independent certification programs.
Kelp forests are underwater areas with a high density of kelp, which covers a large part of the world's coastlines. Smaller areas of anchored kelp are called kelp beds. They are recognized as one of the most productive and dynamic ecosystems on Earth. Although algal kelp forest combined with coral reefs only cover 0.1% of Earth's total surface, they account for 0.9% of global primary productivity. Kelp forests occur worldwide throughout temperate and polar coastal oceans. In 2007, kelp forests were also discovered in tropical waters near Ecuador.
Marine ecosystems are the largest of Earth's aquatic ecosystems and exist in waters that have a high salt content. These systems contrast with freshwater ecosystems, which have a lower salt content. Marine waters cover more than 70% of the surface of the Earth and account for more than 97% of Earth's water supply and 90% of habitable space on Earth. Seawater has an average salinity of 35 parts per thousand of water. Actual salinity varies among different marine ecosystems. Marine ecosystems can be divided into many zones depending upon water depth and shoreline features. The oceanic zone is the vast open part of the ocean where animals such as whales, sharks, and tuna live. The benthic zone consists of substrates below water where many invertebrates live. The intertidal zone is the area between high and low tides. Other near-shore (neritic) zones can include mudflats, seagrass meadows, mangroves, rocky intertidal systems, salt marshes, coral reefs, lagoons. In the deep water, hydrothermal vents may occur where chemosynthetic sulfur bacteria form the base of the food web.
CSIRO Publishing is an Australian-based science and technology publisher. It publishes books, journals and magazines across a range of scientific disciplines, including agriculture, chemistry, plant and animal sciences, natural history and environmental management. It also produces interactive learning modules for primary school students and provides writing workshops for researchers.
The environmental impact of fishing includes issues such as the availability of fish, overfishing, fisheries, and fisheries management; as well as the impact of industrial fishing on other elements of the environment, such as bycatch. These issues are part of marine conservation, and are addressed in fisheries science programs. According to a 2019 FAO report, global production of fish, crustaceans, molluscs and other aquatic animals has continued to grow and reached 172.6 million tonnes in 2017, with an increase of 4.1 percent compared with 2016. There is a growing gap between the supply of fish and demand, due in part to world population growth.
The Australian Continuous Plankton Recorder (AusCPR) survey is a joint project of the CSIRO and the Australian Antarctic Division, DEWHA, to monitor plankton communities as a guide to the health of Australia's oceans.
The Future of Marine Animal Populations (FMAP) project was one of the core projects of the international Census of Marine Life (2000–2010). FMAP's mission was to describe and synthesize globally changing patterns of species abundance, distribution, and diversity, and to model the effects of fishing, climate change and other key variables on those patterns. This work was done across ocean realms and with an emphasis on understanding past changes and predicting future scenarios.
Boris Worm is a marine ecologist, and the Killam Research Professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
The Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) is a teaching and research institute of the University of Tasmania in Hobart, Tasmania. IMAS was established in 2010, building upon the university's partnership with CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere and the Australian Antarctic Division in cooperative Antarctic research and Southern Ocean research.
Raymond (Ray) John Heaphy Beverton CBE FRS was an important founder of fisheries science. He is best known for the book On the Dynamics of Exploited Fish Populations (1957) which he wrote with Sidney Holt. The book is a cornerstone of modern fisheries science and remains much used today. Beverton's life and achievements are described in detail in several obituaries written by prominent figures in fisheries science.
Leanne Armand was an Australian professor of marine science. She was an expert in the identification of diatoms in the Southern Ocean. She was known for her contributions to the understanding of past Southern Ocean dynamics and sea ice as a result of her knowledge of diatom distributions and ecology.
CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere (O&A) (2014–2022) was one of the then 8 Business Units of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia's largest government-supported science research agency. In December 2022 it was merged with CSIRO Land and Water to form a single, larger Business Unit called simply, "CSIRO Environment".
Jessica Melbourne-Thomas is a marine, Antarctic, and climate change scientist with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia. Her research focuses on climate change, its effects on the marine environment, and how to adapt and response to these changes.
Gretta T. Pecl is an Australian marine ecologist, Australian Research Council Future Fellow, and the Director of the Centre for Marine Socioecology (CMS) at the University of Tasmania. Her work focuses on species and ecosystem responses to climate change, as well as using socioecological approaches to adapt natural resource management for climate change. She is on the editorial board of Springer Nature's Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries, and is a Subject Editor for Ecography.
The K. Radway Allen Award is the highest honour awarded by the Australian Society for Fish Biology. It recognises individuals who have made an "outstanding contribution in fish or fisheries science." The award, inaugurated in 1995, is named for New Zealand fisheries biologist Kenneth Radway Allen.
Peter Colin Young is a British-born ichthyologist and parasitologist who spent most of his career in Australia. From 1995 to 1997, he served as president of the Australian Society for Fish Biology.
Marine Permaculture is a form of mariculture that reflects the principles of permaculture by recreating seaweed forest habitat and other ecosystems in nearshore and offshore ocean environments. Doing so enables a sustainable long-term harvest of seaweeds and seafood, while regenerating life in the ocean.
The Fisheries and Marine Ecosystem Model Intercomparison Project (Fish-MIP) is a marine biology project to compare computer models of the impact of climate change on sea life. Founded in 2013 as part of the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP), it was established to answer questions about the future of marine biodiversity, seafood supply, fisheries, and marine ecosystem functioning in the context of various climate change scenarios. It combines diverse marine ecosystem models from both the global and regional scale through a standardized protocol for ensemble modelling in an attempt to correct for any bias in the individual models that make up the ensemble. Fish-MIP's goal is to use this ensemble modelling to project a more robust picture of the future state of fisheries and marine ecosystems under the impacts of climate change, and ultimately to help inform fishing policy.
June Norma Olley was a world-renowned seafood technologist and advocate for women's education. She was among the first to devise a scientific methodology for predictive microbiology.
