FisheriesCentre ResearchReports Estimating the biomass of commercially exploited fisheries stocks left in the

This was accomplished by estimating, for the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) of all maritime countries and the high seas, the fraction currently left in the sea of the exploited populations of fish and invertebrates that occurred before the onset of large-scale industrial fishing. [...] Thus, this project was conceived to help in establishing an index or measure for the fish biomass currently left in the EEZs of the world’s maritime countries as a contribution to the work of the Flourishing Oceans initiative of the Minderoo Foundation. [...] If the trend of the last 5 years follows the underlying FAO data, then the dataset was accepted, albeit with the caveat that published evidence of the cause of the trend was required. [...] The choice of the relative biomass time series used in the CMSY analyses followed the criteria below: • The EEZ where most of a stock is caught best represents the stock in that ME and is the first choice for the source of relative biomass; • Where such dominance is unclear, and if there are several official assessments available for a stock in a given ME, the relative biomass from the most recent. [...] The general conclusions from the training course and the stock assessments it generated were: • There are enough L/F and catch data series in the CRSP region for stock assessments to be performed, i.e., it is no longer the case that “there are no data”; and • Policymakers in the CRSP region must face up to the fact that the assessment of the major stocks in the region indicates overexploitation, a.