Who Decides How Much Fish Ends Up on Your Plate?

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Most people think

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fisheries management is broken.

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Too political, too slow,

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too disconnected from science.

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And honestly, a lot of the

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time, they're right, it's true.

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But what if I told you

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there's one global fishery

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where things have

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actually started to turn around?

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Not perfectly, but measurably.

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And tomorrow I'm bringing on a guest

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who's gonna walk through just how big

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of the shift really is.

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But today, we need to

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understand the system first.

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Because if you see

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how fisheries management

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actually operates, you'll understand

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why the result matters so much.

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This is the How to

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Protect the Ocean podcast.

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Your weekday ocean news and insight

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podcast, where we connect the dots

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between science, policy

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and real world action.

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So if you want to understand how ocean

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management is done, how it really works,

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and not just the headlines, you want to

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follow this podcast on your favorite

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podcast app so you don't

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miss tomorrow's episode.

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At its core, fisheries

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management answers one question.

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How much can we fish

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without collapsing the population?

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You think that's a pretty big idea, and

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it's a very, a lot of pressure on that

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because we haven't

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really been doing a great job

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with many of the fisheries in the past.

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But to figure that out,

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scientists use stock assessments.

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These models estimate how the fish are,

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how many fish are in the

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ocean, how fast they reproduce,

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how much pressure they can handle.

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From there, they

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determine where a stock is,

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if it's healthy, being overfished,

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or even at risk of being overfished.

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Now, here's where it gets complicated.

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Tuna, they don't stay in one place.

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So instead of managing a local fishery,

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you're managing a shared global resource.

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Multiple countries, one population.

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That's where things start to break down.

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One of the things that I always talked

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about in my master's with my professor

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and my supervisor, he was always saying,

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"Hey, you know what?

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There are certain

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fisheries that we can manage within

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like a national boundary,

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an exclusive economic zone.

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And those fisheries are

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a little easier to manage

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because just one country, one population,

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maybe a couple of fisheries, different

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stock assessments and so forth.

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But the one country had the ability to

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enact its own rules on it.

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Now, some of those rules are great for

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different countries,

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and some of them are not so

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great for other countries.

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But they are able to manage it and makes

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it a little bit easier.

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When a fishery

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population goes over those borders

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outside the exclusive

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economic zone, like squid fishery,

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or they go all over the place or go into

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another country's

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exclusive economic zone,

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then you start to have to work in

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collaboration with other

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countries, other nations.

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Hopefully you're

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friendly with those nations.

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And when it goes to the high seas, it's

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even more difficult

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because there's really,

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other than the high seas treated, which

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is just enacted on

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January 17th of this year, 2026,

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there's really no process in place to

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protect those fisheries once

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it goes into the high seas.

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So it gets a little difficult and it gets

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a little complicated

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and starts to break down when we get to

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those positions and those processes.

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Now, here's the uncomfortable truth.

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The science has been there for decades.

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I've been saying that all week.

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The problem was never

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knowing what to do, how to act.

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The problem was actually doing the work

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and implementing the science, the

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guidance into the system.

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In global fisheries like tuna, decisions

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are made by international groups.

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Dozens of countries sit around the table.

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Scientists give advice, but countries

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negotiate and those negotiations often

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push limits higher than

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what the science recommends.

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Sometimes they don't agree at all.

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There are even cases where meetings

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happened over and over again and no

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decision was actually made, even when

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stocks were clearly in trouble.

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So the science says the

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stocks were in trouble.

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If they go over a certain amount of

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quota, then, you know, the

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stocks will be even more trouble,

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but then nobody really cared because they

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couldn't agree to an actual number, even

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though the number was there to be like,

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hey, if we fish at, say, 30,000 tons,

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then we can actually make sure that we do

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not overfish the population.

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I'm picking 30,000 tons out of the air.

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I don't know what the

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tons in here would be.

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However, it is very,

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it is very important.

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So the system wasn't being broken because

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of the lack of

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knowledge or the lack of data.

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It was broken because of how the

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decisions were actually made.

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And we've seen this time and time again.

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Yesterday's episode of you haven't been

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able to listen to it.

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You know, I talked about the cod fishery

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and how that was broken.

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That system was broken.

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The science said, hey,

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we're seeing a collapse.

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We're trying to see a decline and maybe

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even collapse coming for the cod fishery.

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Paul Disson is like, yeah, we're going to

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still negotiate above the quota level

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that that will make it sustainable.

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And then what happens?

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The collapse of the fisheries shifted the

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economics for the province of

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Newfoundland and other places.

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And it's just it hasn't really recovered.

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It just really hasn't.

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So that makes it very difficult.

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So what started to shift

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that made things change?

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It really was alignment groups like

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International Seafood Sustainability

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Foundation brought together

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scientists, industry and NGOs.

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And instead of competing voices, they

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created one unified push.

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Follow the frickin science.

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Right. Seems pretty easy.

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But believe you me, it is actually more

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complicated than you than you think

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because people don't

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want to listen to the data.

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The one thing about science is you may

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not like the results, but it's still the

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result and you have to follow the science

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or else you are going to get a worse

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result the next year or the decade later

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whenever you decide to sample or if you

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continue to sample and

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still not listen to the science.

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But more importantly, the groups backed

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up the follow the science action.

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Companies shared catch data.

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Retailers demanded sustainable sourcing.

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The fisheries started

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pushing for better management.

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This wasn't about

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necessarily being louder.

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It was about being

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consistent and credible.

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And when pressure comes from every part

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of the system, not just one, governments

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have to start to respond.

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And they do. And they did.

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Then came the biggest shift.

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Harvest strategies, which

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we talked about yesterday.

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If you don't know about harvest

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strategies, listen to

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the episode yesterday.

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We talked a lot about it.

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Before this, fisheries were

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managed pretty reactively.

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Every year meant new negotiations, new

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debates, new delays and harvest

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strategies flipped that right.

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They came up with a pre agreed rules.

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If stock declines, we reduce fishing.

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If it grows, we increase fishing.

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No debate in the moment.

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No political delay.

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Just a system that responds

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automatically based on science.

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That's pretty powerful because it removes

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short term decision making and replaces

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it with long term planning.

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And at the same time, the

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market started to change.

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Right. Certification programs like the

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Marine Stewardship Council raised the bar

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to sell into major markets.

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Fisheries needed healthy stocks, science

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based management and harvest strategies.

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They needed those rules.

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So fisheries had a choice.

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They could adapt or lose access and they

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adapted fishing vessels also stepped up

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adopting bycatch reduction techniques,

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monitoring systems, voluntary

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sustainability, maintenance, and so forth.

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And here's the key.

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Even one improvement matter.

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So because there when hundreds of vessels

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each did their own thing, we started to

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see them doing better.

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The system changed fast because everybody

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was doing something.

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And that's a big thing.

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Even if it was just one thing, there were

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multiple measures they could take.

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But even if they did one thing at the

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minimum, things changed because there

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were so many vessels involved.

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So why does all of this

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matter in this episode?

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I've talked about it all week.

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Why does it all matter?

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Because it's a very important thing.

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We don't hear enough about fisheries

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management can actually work.

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Not perfectly, not everywhere, but it can

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work when science is trusted.

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Data shared incentives are aligned and

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decisions aren't delayed.

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And tomorrow we're going to look at what

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happens when all of that comes together

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because the results

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might actually surprise you.

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Now, this isn't a

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perfect system by any means.

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There's going to be gaps of monitoring

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and enforcement, data limitations,

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observer coverage and climate impacts are

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all going to have a say in what happens.

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And the next step is even bigger.

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Moving towards

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ecosystem based management.

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Looking at the entire

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ecosystem, not just one species.

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That's where this is heading and it's

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heading in a good in a

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good way, in a good direction.

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If there's one thing to take away from

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this episode today, it's this.

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We don't have a

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knowledge problem in fisheries.

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We have an implementation problem and

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when implementation

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improves outcomes improve.

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It's really not that

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difficult from a process standpoint.

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And tomorrow we're going to look at

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exactly how far that improvement has gone

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with tuna fisheries and what it means for

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the future of ocean conservation.

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I want to thank you for listening to this

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episode of the how to

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protect the ocean podcast.

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Make sure that you follow the show so you

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don't miss tomorrow's episode.

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It's a really important episode where we both have a lot of fun. And if you know someone who thinks

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fisheries management never works, share

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this episode with them because the ocean

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needs more people who

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understand what is actually possible.

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I want to thank you for joining me on

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today's episode of the how

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to protect the ocean podcast.

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I'm your host, Andrew.

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Have a great day. We'll talk to you

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tomorrow and happy conservation.