Fish mass is 34% higher in Australia's marine protected areas, but only if all fishing is banned

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2025-07-09 09:01

Australia; SA; TAS

Image by joakant from Pixabay

The mass of fish in fully protected Marine Protected Areas is 34% higher than what is expected if they were openly fished, according to Australian research, which also found no boost to fish mass in partially protected areas. The authors say the findings highlight the importance of strict fishing exclusion for fish biomass recovery.

Attachments

Note: Not all attachments are visible to the general public. Research URLs will go live after the embargo ends.

Research The Royal Society, Web page Please link to the article in online versions of your report (the URL will go live after the embargo ends).

Journal/
conference: Proceedings of the Royal Society B

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: University of Tasmania, The University of Adelaide

Funder: This work was partially supported by a Parks Victoria Student Research Scholarship. Data from RLS and ATRC used in the analyses are managed through, and were sourced from, Australia’s Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS)—IMOS is enabled by the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS). Support was also provided by the Australian Research Council (R.D.S.-S. by ARC FT190100599, C.M. by FT200100870). R.D.S.-S. was also supported by a Fellowship in Marine Consearvtion by the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Media Contact/s

Contact details are only visible to registered journalists.