Overexploitation of the world’s fisheries is the
subject ofmuch recent concern (FAO 2002, Pauly et al.
2002,Hilborn et al. 2003). Although the global production of
fish and fishery products continues to grow, the harvest from
capture fisheries has stagnated over the last decade.Today numerous
fish stocks and species have declined since their historical
peaks, and some have even collapsed, leading to urgent
calls for more stringent management and the establishment
of protected areas (Roberts et al. 2003). However, the discussion
of the current fisheries crisis has focused nearly exclusively
on marine resources, and to some extent on
associated threats to marine biodiversity, particularly those affecting
charismatic animals such as seabirds, marine turtles,
dolphins, and whales. The fisheries of inland waters have received
only slight consideration within global analyses (FAO
1999,Hilborn et al. 2003,Kura et al. 2004).Here we summarize
and evaluate the evidence that overfishing in inland waters is
occurring and is a contributing factor to the decline of freshwater
biodiversity.We define inland fisheries as the capture
of wild stocks of primarily freshwater fish, including migratory
species that move between fresh water and the oceans.
Although aquaculture significantly augments the supply of certain
species and contributes a substantial fraction to the overall
harvest, we focus on capture fisheries of natural stocks.