The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2020

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PART 1 
WORLD REVIEW
Arctic and Antarctic areas, which have minor 
landings, three groups of patterns can be 
observed (
Figure 21
): (i) areas with a continuously 
increasing trend in catches since 1950; (ii) areas 
with catches oscillating around a globally 
stable value since 1990, associated with the 
dominance of pelagic, short-lived species; 
and (iii) areas with an overall declining trend 
following historical peaks. The first group 
had the highest percentage (71.5 percent) of 
biologically sustainable stocks in comparison 
with the second group (64.2 percent) and the 
third group (64.5 percent). Linking the catch 
pattern with stock status is not straightforward. 
In general, an increasing trend in catch 
usually suggests an improving stock status or 
an expansion in fishing intensity, whereas a 
decreasing trend is more likely to be associated 
with declines in abundance. However, other 
causes, such as environmental changes and 
fisheries measures to reduce fishing intensity 
in order to rebuild overfished stocks, may also 
explain decreasing catch. 
Status and trends by major species
Productivity and stock status also vary greatly 
among species. For the ten species that 
had the largest landings between 1950 and 
2017 – anchoveta (Peruvian anchovy), Alaska 
pollock (walleye pollock), Atlantic herring, 
Atlantic cod, Pacific chub mackerel, Chilean 
jack mackerel, Japanese pilchard, Skipjack 
tuna, South American pilchard, and capelin – 
69.0 percent of stocks were fished within 
biologically sustainable levels in 2017, slightly 
higher than the world average. Of these ten 
species, Chilean jack mackerel, Atlantic cod 
and Japanese pilchard had higher than average 
proportions of overfished stocks. 
FIGURE 19
GLOBAL TRENDS IN THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S MARINE FISH STOCKS, 1974–2017
Biologically sustainable
Biologically unsustainable
25
50
75
100