The 2012 report provides landings totals for both domestic recreational and commercial fisheries by species and allows us to track important indicators such as annual seafood consumption and the productivity of top fishing ports. These statistics provide valuable insights, but to fully understand the overall condition of our fisheries, they must be looked at in combination with other biological, social, and economic factors of ecosystem and ocean health.

Gold Medal Winner - Economics, Independent Publisher Book Awards In The Price of Fish, Michael Mainelli and Ian Harris examine in a unique way the world's most abiding and wicked problems sustainability, global warming, over-fishing, overpopulation, the pensions crisis; all of which are characterized by a set of messy, circular, aggressive and peculiarly long-term problems and go on to suggest that it is not the circumstances that are too complex, but our way of reading them that is too simple. Too simple and often wrong. The authors aim to blend four streams choice, economics, systems and evolution in a combination they believe is the key to making better decisions and, in turn, finding answers to the world's most pernicious problems.

This book is open access under a CC BY-NC 2.5 license. The Gulf of Mexico is an open and dynamic marine ecosystem rich in natural resources but heavily impacted by human activities, including agricultural, industrial, commercial and coastal development. The Gulf of Mexico has been continuously exposed to petroleum hydrocarbons for millions of years from natural oil and gas seeps on the sea floor, and more recently from oil drilling and production activities located in the water near and far from shore. Major accidental oil spills in the Gulf are infrequent; two of the most significant include the Ixtoc I blowout in the Bay of Campeche in 1979 and the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in 2010. Unfortunately, baseline assessments of the status of habitats and biota in the Gulf of Mexico before these spills either were not available, or the data had not been systematically compiled in a way that would help scientists assess the potential short-term and long-term effects of such events. This 2-volume series compiles and summarizes thousands of data sets showing the status of habitats and biota in the Gulf of Mexico before the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. Volume 2 covers historical data on commercial and recreational fisheries, with an analysis of marketing trends and drivers; ecology, populations and risks to birds, sea turtles and marine mammals in the Gulf; and diseases and mortalities of fish and other animals that inhabit the Gulf of Mexico.

This techno-economic performance review of selected fishing fleets in North and South America presents the findings of four country level studies of fishing fleets in the United States of America, Brazil, Chile and Peru. The review includes financial and economic information of 21 fishing fleet segments, including shrimp and groundfish trawlers, demersal trawlers, longliners, purse seiners, dredgers as well as hook and line fishing vessels. Analysis of the costs and earnings data of these important fishing fleet segments in North and South America, using survey data from 2012 -2017 for the US fleet segments and 2018 data for the South American countries’ fleets showed that 81 percent of the fleet segments had a positive net cash flow. The net profit margins of 38 percent of the 21 fishing fleet segments were >10%. Two-thirds (67%) of the fleet segments presented positive results in terms of their capital productivity as the return on fixed tangible assets (ROFTA) was positive. Twenty four percent of the fleet segments showed return on investment (ROI) figures of twenty percent or more. A majority of the Chilean and Peruvian fleet segments had ROIs of ten percent or higher in 2018. The financial and economic performance of the fishing fleet segments is not only affected by the seafood prices, but also by the fisheries management regime in place, fish species targeted, fish stock status and fishing methods and technologies applied. The age structure of the fishing vessels shows an increasing trend for most of the fishing fleet segments in this review, which adds to the apparent profitability of the vessels in these fleet segments as depreciation and interests on loans are minimized.

Offers a multidisciplinary edited volume on policy dimensions of climate change for the world's oceans, for researchers, policymakers and activists.

As the Gulf of Mexico recovers from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, natural resource managers face the challenge of understanding the impacts of the spill and setting priorities for restoration work. The full value of losses resulting from the spill cannot be captured, however, without consideration of changes in ecosystem services-the benefits delivered to society through natural processes. An Ecosystem Services Approach to Assessing the Impacts of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico discusses the benefits and challenges associated with using an ecosystem services approach to damage assessment, describing potential impacts of response technologies, exploring the role of resilience, and offering suggestions for areas of future research. This report illustrates how this approach might be applied to coastal wetlands, fisheries, marine mammals, and the deep sea-each of which provide key ecosystem services in the Gulf-and identifies substantial differences among these case studies. The report also discusses the suite of technologies used in the spill response, including burning, skimming, and chemical dispersants, and their possible long-term impacts on ecosystem services.