Development and management of the Southern Ocean krill fishery
Creators: name: Foster, JK
Publisher: name: University Of Tasmania
Year: 2023

description: There has been increasing concern amongst the scientific community and those responsible for the management of the Antarctic krill fishery that the harvesting of this species will soon increase to unprecedented levels. This concern has been prompted by numerous factors including, but not limited to, increased and diversified participation in the fishery, advances in technology, the rapid decline of global fish stocks and an ever-increasing global population. This study examined the development and current management of the fishery for Antarctic knIt (Euphausia superba) in the Southern Ocean with a view to identifying and recommending possible future management strategies to deal with new directions in the industry. The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources aims to manage the krill fishery in line with its precautionary and ecosystem based approach to management In order to fulfil its objectives and allow for orderly development of the fishery, it is necessary for it to be kept informed about the economic drivers. However, currently, there is very limited knowledge available to the Commission on the nature of the marketplace for Antarctic krill. This study used data from the Commission, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, publicly available patent libraries, published literature, industry participants and commodities marketplace to investigate the management and development of the krill fishery. Mechanisms used by the Commission to track the development of the fishery to date, and new tools developed in this study to detect likely future trends in the fishery, indicated that not only is interest in the fishery increasing in terms of participation and investment, but the marketplace for krill has expanded, with a number of new markets (including pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals) likely to expand considerably in coming years. The principal finding of the study was that the krill fishery has been exempted from many of the tighter regulatory controls that other fisheries in the Southern Ocean were subjected to. However, to ensure that the development of the fishery is consistent with its approach to management, and accounts for this fishery's recent rapid development, the Commission will need to adopt tighter regulatory controls including, but not limited to, mandatory observer coverage for all krill fishing vessels, more rigorous application of the existing vessel monitoring system's reporting requirements and allocation of catch limits across smaller management units to mitigate against overfishing in important predator foraging grounds. The Commission has already acted on several of the outcomes and subsequent recommendations from this study that had been submitted to its Working Group on Ecosystem Monitoring and Management and the Scientific Committee as background papers. For example, the Commission ordered a review of the observer program, which has since led to more detailed information both in the observers' notification reports and in the notification form (on gear specifications). In addition, the Commission adopted the use of the patent database developed during this study as a tool for tracking interest and possible developments in the fishery.