Impact of distant water bottom trawl fisheries on nutrient supplies of nutritionally vulnerable countries

Industrial bottom trawling by distant water fishing fleets can affect the food and nutrition security of certain regions by removing aquatic food resources from domestic waters that are typically landed or exported outside the source country but could otherwise locally combat malnutrition. Here, using global reconstructed marine food catch data, we quantify the potential impact of foreign bottom trawling on nutrient availability for local populations. We estimate that, under a scenario in which all foreign bottom trawl catches were retained for domestic use, up to 10.6 million people, mostly in nutritionally vulnerable countries, could transition from inadequate to adequate nutrient intake when averaged across all studied nutrients. On the other hand, this scenario could have negative effects for 4.2 million people, mostly in relatively nutritionally secure countries. Our findings suggest that distant water bottom trawling contributes to global redistributions of aquatic-sourced nutrients and emphasize the need for policy reforms to consider nutrition security, simultaneously promoting sustainable fisheries management and considering equity in international fishing access agreements.