Status and Problems of Fishery LCA Studies

Abstract

Over the last decades, the fishery production has increased remarkably as the global demand expands. As a result, fisheries resources in many areas are now shows a downward trend. To cope with this situation, the methods of fishery resource management have made great progress both in system and technology under the policy of how to catch fish maintaining reproduction. However, in recent years the enlargement of processing volume and distribution range has increased the necessity of considering the environmental impact of fishery such as energy consumption and waste on sea as well as land. With this situation, the updating of management concept has been discussed and the research on aquaculture and fishery using LCA is gradually increasing after 2000. Furthermore, in recent years, the possibility of evaluation of comprehensive environmental impact to marine ecosystem including fishery resources are mentioned. This article presents various problems of fishery and shows discussion on the status of fishery LCA studies.