Second Larkin Lecture
 |
"Fisheries management after 2000: will new paradigms apply?"
Dr John Caddy, FAO, Rome |
Abstract
Disturbing trends in FAO's global statistics show the majority of fishery resources fully exploited; seriously overcapitalised fleets; demand and prices increasing; and growing impacts on marine ecosystems from human populations. An urgent search for improved management frameworks is needed. This requires a better understanding of the axioms underlying current approaches, and how we may better reflect local situations. We should deal with ecosystem considerations, environmental fluctuations, socio-economic factors, and the dangers of open access to marine resources throughout their life history and geographical range. Institutions could help by promoting inter-disciplinary teamwork with fisheries stakeholders, and by breaking down excessive specialisation and regionalization. On the management side, success requires consultative frameworks that explicitly incorporate watchdog functions and precautionary approaches. Given high uncertainty in natural systems, we need fail-safe management, with redundancy in measures of fishery performance and in the instruments applied. Management should operate within a hierarchy of pre-negotiated responses to pre-specified limit reference conditions. Conservation must be given precedence over other objectives if social and economic options are not to be lost. For near-shore resources, governments could partly devolve management responsibility to coastal communities, allocate individual use rights, and limit access. Offshore, satellites make MCS methods effective. Recent international agreements support a more ecologically appropriate approach to fisheries management: supplements to the Law of the Sea Convention include Agenda 21 of UNCED; the Biodiversity Convention; the Agreement on Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks; the Compliance Agreement; and the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fishing. These, and draft agreements now open for signature, provide a comprehensive basis for future customary law. High priorities for management of marine resources will be to rebuild depleted resources, restore habitats and maintain genetic and ecological diversity.
