**Objectives of Fisheries Management**:
– Aim to produce sustainable benefits from renewable aquatic resources.
– Wild fisheries are renewable when they produce an annual biological surplus.
– Activities protect resources for sustainable exploitation.
– Includes environmental rules and monitoring.
– Emphasizes an ecosystem approach.
**Political Aspects of Fisheries Management**:
– Should be based on transparent political objectives.
– Political goals can conflict with each other.
– Typical objectives include maximizing biomass and economic yield.
– Evolving political goals due to various factors.
– Recreational and commercial fisheries have different management objectives.
**International Objectives and Rules**:
– Align with the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries.
– Emphasize the precautionary approach.
– Based on non-binding agreements.
– Concrete rules include minimum spawning biomass and fishing rates.
– Performance against international objectives reviewed by organizations like UBC Fisheries Centre.
**Management Mechanisms and Catch Quotas**:
– Ministries/Government Departments control fisheries.
– Technical measures regulate inputs and outputs.
– Catch quotas, vessel licensing, and catching techniques are used.
– Individual transferable quotas (ITQ) limit total catch.
– ITQs can help prevent fishery collapse and restore declining fisheries.
**Challenges and Additional Aspects in Fisheries Management**:
– Human factors involve regulating actions of people.
– Corruption influences distribution of fishing licenses.
– Quality data is essential for decision-making.
– Fisheries law encompasses regulations on seafood safety and aquaculture.
– Climate change impacts fisheries habitats and fish populations.
The goal of fisheries management is to produce sustainable biological, environmental and socioeconomic benefits from renewable aquatic resources. 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. Fishery management employs activities that protect fishery resources so sustainable exploitation is possible, drawing on fisheries science and possibly including the precautionary principle.
Modern fisheries management is often referred to as a governmental system of appropriate environmental management rules based on defined objectives and a mix of management means to implement the rules, which are put in place by a system of monitoring control and surveillance. An ecosystem approach to fisheries management has started to become a more relevant and practical way to manage fisheries. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), there are "no clear and generally accepted definitions of fisheries management". 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.