An article in npj Ocean Sustainability (Basurto, X., Virdin, J., Franz, N. et al. A global assessment of preferential access areas for small-scale fisheries. npj Ocean Sustain 3, 56 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44183-024-00096-0) provides the first global assessment of the status of preferential access areas (PAAs), a relatively understudied policy tool to govern small-scale fisheries.
The authors find 44 countries, most of them of low or low-middle income, have established a total of 63 PAAs encompassing 3% of continental shelf area worldwide. The analysis of an ad-hoc subsample of 12 countries in three continents for which data were available (2016–2017) revealed that PAAs supported greater amounts of small-scale fisheries marine catch volume, landed value, fishing for self-consumption, and more nutritious species than marine areas outside PAAs. This preliminary assessment suggests that if appropriately enforced through shared governance with fishers and responsible fishing practices, relatively small areas of the ocean could provide important nutrition security, economic, and employment benefits to millions of people living in coastal areas. The authors offer an agenda for future research and policy action based on their findings.
The study found preferential access areas are mostly located in lower and lower-middle-income countries throughout the tropics, where large-scale fishing capacity and effort have steadily grown in recent decades and where the world’s small-scale fisheries are concentrated. Forty-four countries have established a total of 63 preferential access areas, and distance to shore is the most frequent defining criterion. Preferential access areas can have a national or sub-national jurisdiction, and explicitly mention small-scale fisheries and fisheries management as their most common goal.