The fisheries of the South China Sea: Major trends since 1950

Abstract

The catches taken from the South China Sea (SCS) by the bordering countries and others are presented for the period from 1950 to 2014, with emphasis on catches that were ‘reconstructed’, i.e., corrected for completeness. Following a rapid increase in the 1980s and early 1990s, catches from the SCS reached about 10 million tonnes per year, then stagnated despite increasing fishing effort. Some details are provided by (i) functional groups containing hundreds of species, (ii) fishing gears, of which trawls and purse seines are dominant, (iii) fishing sectors, with artisanal fisheries currently taking ¼ and industrial fisheries nearly ¾ of the catches, and (iv) by ex-vessel value, i.e., about 16 billion USD per year. It is also shown that the 10 million tonnes level was achieved by ‘fishing down,’ i.e., catching smaller fish lower in the food web, and through a demand- and subsidy-driven offshore expansion that ended engulfing the entire SCS. Finally, we introduce global warming and its effects on the SCS, and the need to mitigate its impacts, along with the other impacts (acidification, plastics) that will add to the pressures on the SCS ecosystem. Cooperation between the countries bordering the SCS, even if fraught with difficulties, is seen as the only avenue to mitigating these impacts.