Risk assessment of coastal fisheries in the Azores (north-eastern Atlantic)

The Azores (mid-north Atlantic) has a long history of artisanal multispecific fishery exploiting marine resources around the islands slopes and seamounts. Due to the archipelago´s oceanic character, demersal-deep-sea and pelagic-offshore species are central to local economy. However, a coastal subsistence fishery is also economically and culturally important, as well as understudied, underregulated and, up to the present, lacking independent monitoring. A Productivity and Susceptibility Analysis (PSA) was applied to determine stock vulnerability of 38, criteriously selected, coastal species. The PSA identified 20 stocks of concern (3 of which at major risk), thus considered of (high) priority to benefit from a precautionary management approach, at least until more quantitative stock assessments are developed in the future. All of these species generally share (1) a considerable basic knowledge gap (e.g., demography, trophic links, reproduction, habitat use, fisheries); and (2) the absence of previous formal stock assessments, resulting in unknown current population status. Such gaps become graver considering that most of these coastal resources show patterns consistent with progressive signs of intensive or even overexploitation, due to the intensification of combined pressure from the commercial and recreational coastal fishing dating back as early as the 1980’s. As such, we propose an ecosystem-based framework for the regular monitoring, assessment and guidelines for general management of these data-poor coastal resources and fisheries in the region.