THE CONCEPT OF ECO-EFFICIENCY IN FISHERIES. A LITERATURE REVIEW

In light of the decreasing level of biodiversity in the seas and oceans, humanity has to take action to simultaneously maintain a socio-ecological balance and a satisfactory level of fish catches. The degree to which these priorities are achieved can be analyzed using measures of eco-efficiency. The aim of this paper is to present the concept of eco-efficiency in fisheries in literature. In other words, to find out and compare which definitions and measurement methods are most often used by researchers in this area. For this purpose, manual content analysis has been used to research documents available in the SCOPUS database. The review found that, while literature on eco-efficiency in agriculture is abundant, there is still a deficit of research strictly on the fisheries sector. Among 980 articles, only 8 dealt accurately with the selected issue. The most common definition of eco-efficiency is the one proposed by the WBCSD, and the dominant method for measuring eco-efficiency in fisheries is DEA+LCA; however, social aspects are often omitted in these studies, and the studies themselves have a short time span. It is also mentioned that the results obtained in fisheries have lower reliability than in the agricultural sector, mainly due to the phenomenon of bycatch and poorer control of activity at sea