Towards an ecosystem approach to fisheries management in India - case study of the Ashtamudi Lake yellow-foot clam fishery

Conserving marine resources and managing fisheries have been put in an ecosystem perspective in many parts of the world for some time now. The Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries (EAF) and its many variants as enunciated by the FAO differs from most fisheries or environmental policies, which tend to focus on single species or habitats, in that the interconnectedness of ecological, social, and economic parameters for developing local and regional management of an ecosystem is explicitly recognized. Despite the soundness of the concept of EAF, there are only a few successful examples of well managed fisheries using the approach. Even when EAF is ecologically and institutionally attainable, multiple problems can arise from competing interests among stakeholders, undeveloped or inappropriate governance structures, poor science, or lack of political will. The situation is perhaps more complex in the tropics due to the large number of co-occurring species, gears and fishers. In the developing world, this is compounded by the lack of a governance structure, and in places where they do exist, the lack of its implementation