The need of an ecosystem approach to fisheries: The Moroccan upwelling-related resources case

Abstract

The Canary Current ecosystem is one of the four major eastern boundary upwelling systems of the world oceans. The Moroccan Atlantic continental shelf is part of the Canary Current ecosystem, and constitutes an area of high biological productivity and intensive fisheries activity. During the last five decades, catches and distribution of numerous species have undergone decadal changes. Huge fluctuations of abundance have been observed for sardines, sardinellas and other pelagic and bottom fishes. Time-series of catches show signs of replacement of long-lived bottom species by short-lived ones (small pelagics and cephalopods) in the commercial fisheries, as part of a heavy ecological footprint of exploitation in the ecosystem. Like most fisheries worldwide, Moroccan marine fisheries are presently managed following a mono-species approach. The research and stock assessment effort has mainly focused on the commercially targeted species. The mono-species approach has gradually revealed its limits, and more attention has to be given to the complex array of interactions in marine ecosystems, but the problems that this question raises to fisheries in the case of poor data availability are immense.