Marine recreational fishing (MRF) is a high‐participation activity with large economic value and social benefits globally, and it impacts on some fish stocks. Although reporting MRF catches is a European Union legislative requirement, estimates are only available for some countries. Here, data on numbers of fishers, participation rates, days fished, expenditures, and catches of two widely targeted species were synthesized to provide European estimates of MRF and placed in the global context. Uncertainty assessment was not possible due to incomplete knowledge of error distributions; instead, a semi‐quantitative bias assessment was made. There were an estimated 8.7 million European recreational sea fishers corresponding to a participation rate of 1.6%. An estimated 77.6 million days were fished, and expenditure was €5.9 billion annually. There were higher participation, numbers of fishers, days fished and expenditure in the Atlantic than the Mediterranean, but the Mediterranean estimates were generally less robust. Comparisons with other regions showed that European MRF participation rates and expenditure were in the mid‐range, with higher participation in Oceania and the United States, higher expenditure in the United States, and lower participation and expenditure in South America and Africa. For both northern European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax, Moronidae) and western Baltic cod (Gadus morhua, Gadidae) stocks, MRF represented 27% of the total removals. This study highlights the importance of MRF and the need for bespoke, regular and statistically sound data collection to underpin European fisheries management. Solutions are proposed for future MRF data collection in Europe and other regions to support sustainable fisheries management.

Bottom trawl fishing threatens deep-sea ecosystems, modifying the seafloor morphology and its physical properties, with dramatic consequences on benthic communities. Therefore, the future of deep-sea fishing relies on alternative techniques that maintain the health of deep-sea ecosystems and tolerate appropriate human uses of the marine environment. In this study, we demonstrate that deep-sea bottom longline fishing has little impact on vulnerable marine ecosystems, reducing bycatch of cold-water corals and limiting additional damage to benthic communities. We found that slow-growing vulnerable species are still common in areas subject to more than 20 years of longlining activity and estimate that one deep-sea bottom trawl will have a similar impact to 296–1,719 longlines, depending on the morphological complexity of the impacted species. Given the pronounced differences in the magnitude of disturbances coupled with its selectivity and low fuel consumption, we suggest that regulated deep-sea longlining can be an alternative to deep-sea bottom trawling.

Pham, C. K., Canha, A., Diogo, H., Pereira, J. G., Prieto, R., and Morato, T. 2013. Total marine fishery catch for the Azores (1950–2010). – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 70: 564–577. Official fishery statistics often fail to report what has been truly extracted from the marine environment. Therefore, in this study, we estimated illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) catch in the context of a small-scale fishery (the Azores) and provide an improved compilation of official catches, including whaling. Reconstructed removals during 1950–2010 total 1.10 million t (95% CI, 1.06–1.16 million t), a factor of 1.17 higher than the amount reported in Azorean official statistics. Unreported catches were attributed to foreign fishing activities (27%), recreational fishing (25%), discards from the demersal fishing fleet (21%), baitfish for the pole-and-line tuna fishery (11%), discards from pelagic longlining (7%), local pelagic fleet landing outside the Azores (3%), coastal invertebrate harvesting (6%), and big-game fishing (0.1%). The overall low level of unreported catches compared to other locations might reflect the small-scale nature of the fisheries, the geographic isolation of the islands, and the small size of its community.

Marine spatial management is an important step in regulating the sustainable use of marine resources and preserving habitats and species. The systematic conservation planning software “Marxan” was used to analyse the effect of different conservation objectives and targets on the design of a network of marine protected areas around two islands of the Azores archipelago, Northeast Atlantic. The analyses integrated spatial patterns of the abundance and reproductive potential of multispecies, the vulnerability of fish to fishing, habitat type, algae biotopes, and socio-economic costs and benefits (including fishing effort and recreational activities). Three scenarios focused on fisheries-related objectives (“fisheries scenarios”, FSs) and three on multiple-use and biodiversity conservation objectives (“biodiversity scenarios”, BSs), respectively. Three different protection targets were compared for each set, the existing, minimum, and maximum levels of protection, whereas conservation features were weighted according to their biologically/ecologically functioning. Results provided contrasting solutions for site selection and identified potential gaps in the existing design. The influence of the conservation objective on site selection was most evident when minimum target levels were applied. Otherwise, solutions for FSs and BSs were very similar and mostly shaped by the protection level. More important, BSs that considered opportunity cost and benefits achieved conservation targets more cost-efficiently. The presented systematic approach ensures that targets for habitats with high fish abundance, fecundity, and vulnerability are achieved efficiently. It should be of high applicability for adaptive management processes to improve the effectiveness of existing spatial management practices, in particular when fishing and leisure activities coexist, and suggest that decision-makers should account for multiple users’ costs and benefits when designing and implementing marine reserve networks.