Matthias Bernreuther

Pan-Arctic Fisheries and their Assessment

Pan-Arctic fisheries are highly diverse in their purpose, species biology, productivity, economic and strategic importance as well as in how they are prosecuted. They range from full industrial fisheries to community-based artisanal, sport and subsistence fisheries. The nature of Arctic ecosystems in the region varies from extremely productive to relatively barren in terms of fisheries production. Gear types vary, but offshore trawl fisheries and inshore and freshwater gillnet fisheries are the most common. Rights-based fisheries (e.g., for indigenous inhabitants) are more prominent in the Canadian and American Arctic than in European jurisdictions. The principal harvested species in freshwater environments tend to be from few taxa mainly Salvelinus spp. and from the family Coregonidae, while the marine taxa are more diverse. Compared to north temperate fisheries, Arctic fisheries have impressive variation across longitudes; some jurisdictions support only small-scale subsistence fisheries, whereas others contain some of the largest yields among industrial fisheries. Approaches to scientific assessment are also highly diverse with a range from catch-based indicators to sophisticated fully age-structured population models.