This book presents multi-level approaches to the problem of unsustainable fisheries and provides potential solutions to address it. It discusses the importance of fisheries from a global perspective, describes current fisheries failings, and provides recommendations for more sustainable practices (e.g., food and livelihood security, interdisciplinary approaches, ecosystem-based and community-based management, governance reforms, reduced capacity, and accountability).
In the last decades, the human harvesting of marine resources became more efficient as the understanding of the habits and behaviours of the various species available in the sea gradually increased. Technologies naturally developed over time and fishing systems became more sophisticated and increasingly adapted to catch the most desirable species and sizes. This evolution is still in progress and technological development goes on especially in the Mediterranean area, where small and relatively old fishing vessels are traditionally used. These technical advances in fishing gears have generally led to more efficient fishing operations and improved access to resources and fishing grounds. On the other hand, general awareness on the environmental problems due to the exploitation of fisheries resources has also increased. Therefore, in order to preserve fishery resources and marine environments, fishing gears and their impacts need to be further investigated and less impacting techniques should be developed. In this regard, fishing technologists are responsible to provide fishery managers as well as fishermen and stakeholders, with useful advice and technical solutions for mitigating adverse impacts of fishing gears. By taking these problems into account, the book contents are based on the requirements of ecosystem-approach to fisheries management. The Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries of the FAO (1995) encouraged the use of selective, environmentally safe and cost effective gear and techniques. Thus the book aims at providing information on sustainable fishing technologies, and transfers the expertise on fishing technology to Mediterranean fisheries scientists and end-users such as fisheries managers, administrators, controllers etc. This book is structured to provide information on fishing gear technology, selectivity, bycatch-impact reduction and fishing vessel technology, with particular attention to the Mediterranean context. The information included might be used to learn how to assess the impacts and selectivity of different fishing gears and find technical solutions to mitigate these impacts and to address scientific studies. Furthermore, advices on the properties of fishing vessels affecting energy efficiency have been also considered in order to address possible technical changes to the currents boats. Finally the contents of this book might be considered as a useful tool when preparing management measures as well as for the establishment, enforcement or improvement of fishing rules.
What has happened to the salmon resource in the Pacific Northwest? Who is responsible and what can be done to reverse the decline in salmon populations? The responsibly falls on everyone involved - fishermen, resource managers and concerned citizens alike - to take the steps necessary to ensure that salmon populations make a full recovery. T
The world’s stocks of wild fish continue to decline, making the task of finding innovative, sustainable and socially acceptable methods of fisheries management more important than ever. Several new approaches from around the world have proved to be successful in stemming the decline whilst increasing fish catches, and under the editorship of McClanahan and Castilla this international team of authors have looked to these examples to provide the reader with carefully chosen case studies offering practical suggestions and solutions for problem fisheries elsewhere. Coverage includes: Community based fisheries Collaborative and co-operative fisheries management Coastal fisheries management The future for sustainable fisheries management Written by many of the world’s most experienced practitioners Fisheries Management: Progress toward sustainability is an important purchase for all fisheries scientists, managers and conservationists. All libraries in universities and research establishments where this area is studied and taught will find this book a valuable addition to their shelves.
This book explores how we can solve the urgent problem of optimizing the use of variable, uncertain but finite fisheries resources while maintaining sustainability from a marine-ecosystem conservation perspective. It offers readers a broad understanding of the current methods and theory for sustainable exploitation of fisheries resources, and introduces recent findings and technological developments. The book is divided into three parts: Part I discusses fish stock dynamics, and illustrates how ecological processes affecting life cycles and biological interactions in marine environments lead to fish stock variability in space and time in major fish groups; small pelagic fish, demersal fish and large predatory fish. These insights shed light on the mechanisms underlying the variability in fish stocks and form the essential biological basis for fisheries management. Part II addresses the technologies and systems that monitor changes in fisheries resources and marine ecosystems using two approaches: fishery-dependent and fishery-independent data. It also describes acoustic surveys and biological sampling, as well as stock assessment methods. Part III examines management models for effectively assessing the natural variability in fisheries resources. The authors explore ways of determining the allowable catch in response to changes in stock abundance and how to incorporate ecological processes and monitoring procedures into management models. This book offers readers a broad understanding of sustainable exploitation as well as insights into fisheries management for the next generation.
This book provides a comprehensive attempt to adopt an 'integrated' interdisciplinary approach to the study of fisheries. Fisheries are discussed as holistic 'systems', with emphasis on their structure, operation and dynamics. The book's interdisciplinary approach is applied to an analysis of problems faced in pursuing 'sustainable fisheries', with emphasis on six dominant themes: sustainability, uncertainty, complexity, conflict, fishing rights and the nature of management. Within this discussion, several major directions in current fishery thinking are explored, notably the precautionary approach, the ecosystem approach, co-management, and robust management for resilient fisheries.
The state of the Northeast Atlantic fisheries in recent years has highlighted - plementation as the Achilles heel of modern fisheries management: discards and unreported or misreported landings are in many cases recognised to effectively subvert sound conservation goals. Social science literature on fisheries mana- ment has tended to regard the implementation of resource conservation policies mainly as a question of effective enforcement. This literature regards surveillance and penalty as the key mechanism through which fishermen keep to catch restr- tions and loyally report their catches. This book emerged because several years of research on fishermen’s compliance had made us uneasy about this rather narrow approach to the problem of implementation. This uneasiness motivated us to widen the approach to the question of implementing conservation policies in the fisheries. Taking Norway as an example, its fishing fleet consists of some 7,000 vessels spread along a coastline of more than 20,000 km, populated by less than 5 million people. The idea of ensuring desirable behaviour through surveillance and - forcement alone is almost absurd in such a context, as the task is impossible by any reasonable means. The Norwegian implementation system has thus had to rely heavily on the incentives provided by the rules and legitimacy created through a century of state/industry collaboration. Different coastal states face very different conditions in terms of solving typical implementation problems such as discards and misreporting.
Analyses the concept of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and the international instruments which provide the legal and policy framework to combat IUU fishing. Palma, Tsamenyi and Edeson, University of Wollongong, Australia.
A proposal for a new global approach for fisheries focused on reducing fishing capacity and providing incentives for long-term sustainability. The Earth's oceans are overfished, despite more than fifty years of cooperation among the world's fishing nations. There are too many boats chasing too few fish. In Saving Global Fisheries, J. Samuel Barkin and Elizabeth DeSombre analyze the problem of overfishing and offer a provocative proposal for a global regulatory and policy approach. Existing patterns of international fisheries management try to limit the number of fish that can be caught while governments simultaneously subsidize increased fishing capacity, focusing on fisheries as an industry to be developed rather than on fish as a resource to be conserved. Regionally based international management means that protection in one area simply shifts fishing efforts to other species or regions. Barkin and DeSombre argue that global rather than regional regulation is necessary for successful fisheries management and emphasize the need to reduce subsidies. They propose an international system of individual transferable quotas that would give holders of permits an interest in the long-term health of fish stocks and help create a sustainable level of fishing capacity globally.
