Department of Biological Sciences, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, California, United States of America.
Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, United States of America.
PLoS Biol. 2014 Mar 25;12(3):e1001826. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1001826. eCollection 2014 Mar.
The world's oceans are governed as a system of over 150 sovereign exclusive economic zones (EEZs, ∼42% of the ocean) and one large high seas (HS) commons (∼58% of ocean) with essentially open access. Many high-valued fish species such as tuna, billfish, and shark migrate around these large oceanic regions, which as a consequence of competition across EEZs and a global race-to-fish on the HS, have been over-exploited and now return far less than their economic potential. We address this global challenge by analyzing with a spatial bioeconomic model the effects of completely closing the HS to fishing. This policy both induces cooperation among countries in the exploitation of migratory stocks and provides a refuge sufficiently large to recover and maintain these stocks at levels close to those that would maximize fisheries returns. We find that completely closing the HS to fishing would simultaneously give rise to large gains in fisheries profit (>100%), fisheries yields (>30%), and fish stock conservation (>150%). We also find that changing EEZ size may benefit some fisheries; nonetheless, a complete closure of the HS still returns larger fishery and conservation outcomes than does a HS open to fishing.
世界海洋被划分为 150 多个拥有专属经济区（EEZ，约占海洋的 42%）的主权国家，以及一个拥有广阔公海（HS）的公共区域（约占海洋的 58%），其海洋资源基本可以自由开发利用。许多高价值的鱼类物种，如金枪鱼、箭鱼和鲨鱼，在这些大型海洋区域中迁徙，由于 EEZ 之间的竞争和全球在公海上的捕捞竞赛，这些鱼类资源已经被过度捕捞，现在的产量远远低于其经济潜力。为了解决这一全球性挑战，我们通过空间生物经济模型分析了完全关闭公海捕鱼活动的影响。这项政策不仅可以促使各国在开发洄游性鱼类种群方面进行合作，还可以提供一个足够大的避难所，使这些鱼类种群得以恢复并保持在接近最大限度增加渔业收益的水平。我们发现，完全关闭公海捕鱼活动将同时带来渔业利润（>100%）、渔业产量（>30%）和鱼类资源保护（>150%）的大幅增长。我们还发现，改变 EEZ 的大小可能会使一些渔业受益；然而，与公海开放捕鱼相比，完全关闭公海仍然会带来更大的渔业和保护成果。
