Which management actions work best to prevent or halt overfishing and to rebuild depleted populations? A comprehensive evaluation of multiple, co-occurring management actions on the sustainability status of marine populations has been lacking. Here we compiled detailed management histories for 288 assessed fisheries from around the world (accounting for 45% of those with formal stock assessments) and used hierarchical time-series analyses to estimate effects of different management interventions on trends in stock status. Rebuilding plans, applied less commonly than other management measures (implemented at some point historically for 43% of stocks), rapidly lowered fishing pressure towards target levels and emerged as the most important factor enabling overfished populations to recover. Additionally, the ratification of international fishing agreements, and harvest control rules specifying how catch limits should vary with population biomass, helped to reduce overfishing and rebuild biomass. Notably, we found that benefits of management actions are cumulative—as more are implemented, stock status improves and predicted long-term catches increase. Thus, a broad suite of management measures at local, national and international levels appears to be key to sustaining fish populations and food production.

哪些管理措施最有效地防止或阻止过度捕捞并重建枯竭的种群？缺乏对海洋种群可持续性状况的多种同时发生的管理行动的综合评价。在这里，我们为来自世界各地的288个经过评估的渔业（占正式种群评估的45％）汇编了详细的管理历史记录，并使用分层时间序列分析来估计不同管理干预措施对种群状况趋势的影响。重建计划的实施不及其他管理措施（在历史上某个时候对43％的种群实施）不那么普遍，它迅速降低了向目标水平的捕捞压力，并成为使过度捕捞种群得以恢复的最重要因素。另外，批准国际捕捞协定，以及规定了捕捞限度应随种群生物量变化的捕捞控制规则，有助于减少过度捕捞和重建生物量。值得注意的是，我们发现管理行动的好处是累积的，随着更多措施的实施，库存状况将改善，预计长期捕捞量也会增加。因此，在地方，国家和国际各级采取一系列广泛的管理措施似乎对维持鱼类种群和粮食生产至关重要。