The establishment of marine protected areas is often viewed as a conflict between conservation and fishing. We considered consumptive and nonconsumptive interests of multiple stakeholders (i.e., fishers, scuba divers, conservationists, managers, scientists) in the systematic design of a network of marine protected areas along California's central coast in the context of the Marine Life Protecti...

According to portfolio theory applied to fisheries management, economic returns are stabilised by harvesting in a portfolio stocks of species whose returns are negatively correlated and for which the portfolio economic return variance is smaller than the sum of stock specific return variances. Also, variability is expected to decrease with portfolio width. Using a range of indicators, these pre...

The broadband anchovy (Anchoviella lepidentostole) is one of the most important fishery resources for economic and social development of Iguape City and for the whole of the south coast of São Paulo state. Nowadays this activity involves over 2,500 fishermen. This paper aims to evaluate its fishing, and discuss how the activity is managed. In order to conduct this study, production data and cat...

Fishing is a potent ecological force. In Lake Victoria, East Africa, Nile perch, Lates niloticus contributes to a multi-million dollar fishing industry but is threatened by over-exploitation. We quantified spatial and temporal trends in the distribution, diet and size of Nile perch in Lake Nabugabo, Uganda, a satellite of Lake Victoria. From 1995 to 2007, we detected a decline in catch per unit...

Alternative policy options available to northern Benguela fisheries managers were explored using Ecopath with Ecosim. Scenarios were tested for optimizing the discounted profit from the fisheries in the ecosystem, maximizing the jobs that can be provided by the fisheries, maximizing a measure of ecosystem status, and analyzing tradeoffs between these management options. Additionally, two differ...

Increasing fishing effort has caused declines in shark populations worldwide. Understanding biological and ecological characteristics of sharks is essential to effectively implement management measures, but to fully understand drivers of fishing pressure social factors must be considered through multidisciplinary and integrated approaches. The present study aimed to use fisher and trader knowle...

No-take marine reserves (NTMRs) are increasingly being established to conserve or restore biodiversity and to enhance the sustainability of fisheries. Although effectively designed and protected NTMR networks can yield conservation and fishery benefits, reserve effects often fail to manifest in systems where there are high levels of non-compliance by fishers (poaching). Obtaining reliable estim...

This study compares the fishing activity and landings of the trawl and creel fisheries for Norway lobster (Nephrops norvegicus (L.)) off the Portuguese coast, and evaluates the financial viability of two vessels typical of each fleet. Crustacean trawlers are part of an industrial fleet that, besides Nephrops, targets deep water shrimps. Creels are used by a multi-gear, multi-target artisanal fl...