Multi-disciplinary, Multi-faceted Approaches to Fisheries Management: Do we need to do all this?

Research PaperThis paper looks at some of the seemingly positive developments in fisheries governance over the last twenty-five years. It asks why fisheries management, if improving, is still failing in its basic objective of managing the people who catch fish so as to ensure that there are enough fish left out there to harvest year after year. The conclusion is that the advent of such frameworks as participatory management, co-management, devolved management, and ecosystem-based management, has greatly improved the context in which fisheries management occurs, but that the fisheries management community has, in the most part, failed to address and resolve the fundamental problem in fisheries - namely, the ability to keep fish in the water for the future. The paper concludes with thoughts for a fresh and unencumbered look at fisheries management and towards the design of fisheries management strategies that create and align incentives