Fisheries management
Wild fisheries are classified as renewable when the organisms of interest (e.g., fish, shellfish, amphibians, reptiles and marine mammals) produce an annual biological surplus that with judicious management can be harvested without reducing future productivity.
[2][3] According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), there are "no clear and generally accepted definitions of fisheries management".
[4] However, the working definition used by the FAO and much cited elsewhere is: The integrated process of information gathering, analysis, planning, consultation, decision-making, allocation of resources and formulation and implementation, with necessary law enforcement to ensure environmental compliance, of regulations or rules which govern fisheries activities in order to ensure the continued productivity of the resources and the accomplishment of other fisheries objectives.
The precautionary approach it prescribes is typically implemented in concrete management rules as minimum spawning biomass, maximum fishing mortality rates, etc.
In 2005 the UBC Fisheries Centre at the University of British Columbia comprehensively reviewed the performance of the world's major fishing nations against the Code.
[17] However, 2005 research on rockfish shows that large, elderly females are far more important than younger fish in maintaining productive fisheries[citation needed].
The first principle focuses on the finite nature of fish stocks and how potential yields must be estimated based on the biological constraints of the population.
In a paper published in 2007, Shertzer and Prager suggested that there can be significant benefits to stock biomass and fishery yield if management is stricter and more prompt.
[22] If fisheries management is to be successful, then associated human factors, such as the reactions of anglers and harvesters, are of key importance, and need to be understood.
[27] Additionally, others have argued that co-management only empowers the wealthy and powerful which in turn solidifies and validates the already existing inequalities of fisheries management.
[27] Empowerment working as a function of co-management, carried out correctly, will not only enable but it will authorize individuals and communities to make meaningful contributions to fisheries management.
[26] In order to effectively and successfully use empowerment as co-management, it is imperative that study programs, guidelines, reading materials, manuals, and checklists are developed and incorporated into all fisheries management.
In small-scale fisheries, inspectors who are charged with regulating catch are bribed to give advance notice of surprise inspections and to relax enforcement standards.
[33] Population dynamics describes the growth and decline of a given fishery stock over time, as controlled by birth, death and migration.
It is the basis for understanding changing fishery patterns and issues such as habitat destruction, predation and optimal harvesting rates.
Frid adds, "Fish communities can be altered in a number of ways, for example they can decrease if particular sized individuals of a species are targeted, as this affects predator and prey dynamics.
Behind this lies two decades of development work by Villy Christensen, Carl Walters, Daniel Pauly, and other fisheries scientists.
Ecopath is widely used in fisheries management as a tool for modelling and visualising the complex relationships that exist in real world marine ecosystems.
"By improving governance of marine fisheries, society could capture a substantial part of this $50 billion annual economic loss.
At the same time, a nation's natural capital in the form of fish stocks could be greatly increased and the negative impacts of the fisheries on the marine environment reduced.
These detail investigations into the black market for bluefin tuna, the subsidies propping up the Spanish fishing industry, and the overfishing of the Chilean jack mackerel.
[45] More than 80 percent of the world's commercial exploitation of fish and shellfish are harvested from natural occurring populations in the oceans and freshwater areas.
[46] For example, the Māori people, New Zealand residents for about 700 years, had prohibitions against taking more than what could be eaten and about giving back the first fish caught as an offering to sea god Tangaroa.
"The Dynamics of Exploited Fish Populations" expressed his concerns, including the way his and Sidney Holt's work had been misinterpreted and misused by fishery biologists and managers during the previous 30 years.
A report by Prince Charles' International Sustainability Unit, the New York-based Environmental Defense Fund and 50in10 published in July 2014 estimated global fisheries were adding $270 billion a year to global GDP, but by full implementation of sustainable fishing, that figure could rise by an extra amount of as much as $50 billion.
