engleski

Maximum sustainable yield and species extinction in ecosystems.

With intent to help fisherman catch the most fish in the long run and to protect fish populations from extinction, major world fisheries regulation agencies have passed recommendations to implement sustainability in fisheries through the application of "maximum sustainable yield" (MSY). We show that application of MSY policy will lead to extinction of a large number of fish species in a majority of ecosystems. More precisely, we prove the following law: approaching MSY in ecosystems means that fish species will be driven to extinction for every fishery that includes fishing of at least one trophic level which is directly or indirectly used as food for a higher trophic level. Because such single and multispecies fisheries make a great majority of existing fisheries, attempts to reach MSY should be discouraged instead of being legally prescribed as a goal. Based on the above result, we offer a simple advice on how to manage a fishery in agreement with the Convention on Biological Diversity.

maximum sustainable yield; singe species fisheries; multispecies fisheries; sustainability; species extinction

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