Dear Colleagues,

Seafood has long been an important source of income in many coastal communities and a staple food in nations around the world. Seafood demand is ever growing over a widening share of populations in modern economies due to its nutritional and health benefits. Both aggregate and per capita consumption of seafood have steadily increased along with growing affluence in many developing nations. To keep pace with consumption demand, seafood production has increased significantly over time through rapid growth in aquaculture production, innovation in more efficient fishing and processing technologies, and through investment in larger production capacity. Markets for seafood have expanded during the past century, as consumer preferences have changed with increasing awareness of the benefits from seafood and more choice of fish species and products. New developments in international trade, investing environment, marketing, supply chains, information technology, transportation, etc., have made seafood accessible and affordable to an increasing share of the global population.

Solid growth in the seafood sector has given rise to challenges in the management and conservation of fishery resources. Wild capture fisheries continue to provide the majority of seafood supply. In the past, many fishing operations faced sustainability issues, primarily due to overfishing and associated bycatch. For several reasons, various fisheries around the world have collapsed or face the brink of collapse, while others which previously collapsed are slowly rebuilding or operating significantly below their historical highs. Overfishing is typically addressed with single-species assessments which provide the basis for output and effort control measures such as catch limits, harvest quota, gear types, rights-based management or catch shares, limited access, limits on fishing days, temporal, or spatial, including the establishment of marine sanctuaries or reserves. Unilateral management measures are appropriate to regulate fishing pressure in domestic waters, while bilateral and multilateral agreements among fishing nations, are necessary to manage transboundary fisheries that are more difficult to negotiate. In the absence of cooperative and binding or enforceable agreements, seafood sustainability may be at considerable risk when some nations race for high historical catches to secure larger share of harvest quotas in high seas fisheries. The same holds true for fishermen in domestic fisheries as well as in sharing a limited fishing ground between neighboring countries.

Bycatch of undesirable species including juvenile fish, compounded in some cases by information asymmetries, where fishermen have different information about bycatch than regulators, has been a pressing issue over the last few decades. Regulatory authorities have been unable to adequately and uniformly address bycatch externalities across regions or jurisdictions. Efforts have been made to manage these externalities with better harvesting techniques and monitoring mechanisms, but in many fisheries, regulatory measures intended to limit bycatch have resulted in underutilization of fishery resources even when stocks are healthy, or a transfer of demand and associated fishing effort to relatively less regulated fisheries. Sustainability issues coupled with uncertainties associated with fisheries operations caused many participants to exit from a fishery for other endeavors. Other aspects of seafood sustainability such as the role of smart technologies, social media, or consumer trends in seafood consumption including utilization of underutilized fish species, seafood certifications, etc., can be significant contributors to seafood sustainability. Better management and technological measures for efficient harvesting to overcome overfishing and reduce bycatch will remain of paramount importance. Bilateral and multilateral cooperation will be very important to achieving global seafood sustainability through better management of transboundary fishery resources.

The science behind intricate interrelationships and interdependencies among various living organisms in a fishery is yet to be fully understood. An ecosystem-based fisheries management approach has been proposed in recent decades as a panacea for ecological and conservation concerns, but such developments have been limited to theoretical discussion with few if any pragmatic commercial fisheries management outcomes to date. Ecosystem component species considered as inedible for human consumption in some jurisdictions may have been used in other jurisdictions as intermediate goods in the production of other terrestrial sources of protein. Such practice might have resulted in depletion of marine resources. More recently the seafood sector has faced numerous emerging issues such as anthropogenic sea warming, acidification, hypoxia, marine debris and chemical pollution, etc., impacting the quality and abundance of fish in the fishing ground. Recent reports have documented changes to the distribution of fishes and degradation of marine habitat. Illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing and seafood fraud also remain big challenges. Some nations have attempted to address the IUU issue, but the success of these efforts largely depends on international cooperation by fishing entities and national authorities.

The government’s role in fisheries along with responsibility and accountability of other stakeholders has been increasingly important in the growth and stability of seafood supply. What was once thought of as the ocean’s unlimited bounty may no longer be a realistic case for many fisheries in the foreseeable future, as our ocean’s vulnerability to complex, multi-faceted externalities becomes increasingly apparent. Many current challenges with seafood are not new, but they remain to be satisfactorily resolved. Additional challenges to sustainability can be expected in the foreseeable future, given ever increasing global seafood demand.

Aquaculture has recently been one of the fastest growing seafood production sector, now contributing about 44 percent of all seafood. However, the impressive aquaculture growth for the world as a whole primarily reflects rapid aquaculture development only in few Asian countries. Aquaculture is still an underutilized technology contributing a mere fraction of domestic seafood production in many other nations. Identifying major limiting factors is a critical issue for these countries as they develop their underexploited potential in aquaculture. Countries with an advanced aquaculture sector face various problems such as diseases, including the evolution of disease-resistant organisms also affecting wild fish, environmental degradation, climate change impacts on aquaculture, increasingly stringent regulations, etc. A key issue for them is how to maintain sustainable aquaculture development in the face of these challenges. Since aquaculture intensively utilizes vast amount of land, water, energy and labor, the competition for these fixed or less elastic resources with other economic sectors might become stiffer with further aquaculture development. While some regions or countries might have comparative advantages over others, increasing competition for factors of production along with inflationary pressures and other unforeseen issues might impede the expansion of aquaculture to its full potential.

In this special edition on seafood sustainability, which is the continuing issue of the former Special Issue, Seafood Sustainability - Series I, we will focus on harvesting and consumption issues surrounding sustainable marine fisheries. We seek papers that will identify successful drivers of sustainable seafood through the dynamic oceanographic, biological, ecological, technological, economic, social, management and regulatory approaches. Besides addressing traditional capture fisheries issues such as overfishing or bycatch, we will consider responses to emerging issues such as climate impacts on fisheries. We further seek papers focusing on environment-friendly aquaculture technologies and practices, aquaculture adaption to climate changes, sustainable aquaculture role in nutrition, food security and employment, social licensing and the public image of aquaculture, policy planning and governance in aquaculture development, and other sustainable aquaculture topics. Lessons from successes and failures will pave a path for future seafood sustainability. An optimal combination of seafood from marine and aquaculture sources will eventually be needed to satisfy ever increasing seafood demand while utilizing and conserving both terrestrial and ocean resources. Innovative practices in managing, conserving, developing or rebuilding marine fishery resources and aquaculture production sustainably in a dynamic environment ultimately offer the potential to optimize the contribution of seafood production to societal welfare. This endeavor will require a strong public-private partnership between government agencies, NGOs and private stakeholders.

Dr. Naresh C. Pradhan
Dr. Stephen M. Stohs
Dr. Junning Cai
Guest Editors

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• Seafood Sustainability
• Marine Fisheries and Aquaculture Production
• Sustainable Fisheries and Aquaculture Management
• Seafood Production, Consumption Demand and Supply Chains
• Environment-Friendly Aquaculture Technologies and Practices
• Externalities and Adaptation to Climate Changes
• Ocean and Aquaculture Governance
• Domestic and International Fisheries
• International Trade