Sustainability now or later? Estimating the benefits of pathways to maximum sustainable yield for EU Northeast Atlantic fisheries

Most countries have the goal to manage their fisheries to achieve a combination of biological, economic, social, and political objectives [1,2].This is also the case for the EU's Common Fisheries Policy (CFP).According to Article 2 of the CFP [3]: "The CFP shall ensure that fishing and aquaculture activities are environmentally sustainable in the longterm and are managed in a way that is consistent with the objectives of achieving economic, social and employment benefits, and of contributing to the availability of food supplies".Furthermore, and in accordance with the resolutions of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, the CFP establishes the objective of restoring and maintaining populations of fish stocks above the biomass levels capable of producing the maximum sustainable yield (MSY). 1 In order to reach the objective of progressively restoring and maintaining populations of fish stocks above biomass levels capable of producing maximum sustainable yield, the maximum sustainable yield exploitation rate shall be achieved by 2015 where possible and, on a progressive, incremental basis at the latest by 2020 for all stocks [3].However, despite the general improvement in the status of many fish stocks that are exploited by the EU fishing fleet [4,5], approximately half (48%) are still exploited at rates greater than F MSY [6].Reducing fishing mortality on fish stocks to F MSY, generally means that in the medium-to long-term, catches from such stocks would be higher than at present, implying that the EU fishing fleet could improve on their current economic performance.In other words, the EU fishing fleet is currently losing potential economic rents because many fish stocks are being exploited at rates that are not capable of delivering the MSY.In this context, Willman et al. [7] show that by improving the management of world marine fisheries (through a significant reduction of fishing effort), the potential (operating) profit of global fisheries could increase by $50 billion per year. 2 Similarly, Srinivasan et al.