Wilderness areas offer unparalleled ecosystem conditions. However, growing human populations and consumption are among factors that drive encroachment on these areas. Here, we explore the threat of small‐scale fisheries to wilderness reefs by developing a framework and modeling fluctuations in fishery range with fuel costs and fish prices. We modeled biomass of four fishery groups across the New Caledonian archipelago, and used fish and fuel prices from 2005 to 2020 to estimate the extent of exploited reefs across three fishing scenarios. From 2012 to 2018, maximum profitable range increased from 15 to over 30 hr from the capital city, expanding to reefs previously uneconomic to fish, including a UNESCO heritage site. By 2020, over half of New Caledonian (∼17% global) wilderness reefs will become profitable to fish. Our results demonstrate that remoteness from humans should not be considered protection for wilderness coral reefs in the context of rising fish prices.

中文翻译：

---

低燃料成本和鱼价上涨威胁着珊瑚礁荒野

荒野地区提供了无与伦比的生态系统条件。但是，人口的增长和消费是促使这些地区受到侵害的因素之一。在这里，我们通过建立框架并利用燃料成本和鱼价对渔业范围的波动进行建模，从而探索小型渔业对荒野礁石的威胁。我们对整个新喀里多尼亚群岛的四个渔业群体的生物量进行了建模，并使用了2005年至2020年的鱼类和燃料价格来估计三种捕捞情景中被开发的珊瑚礁的范围。从2012年到2018年，距首都的最大获利范围从15小时增加到30多小时，范围扩大到以前对鱼类不经济的珊瑚礁，其中包括联合国教科文组织遗产。到2020年，超过一半的新喀里多尼亚（约占全球的17％）的野生珊瑚礁将使鱼类获利。