Salmon are inherently resilient species. However, this resiliency has been undermined in British Columbia by a century of centralized, command-and-control management focused initially on maximizing yield and, more recently, on economic efficiency. Community and cultural resiliency have also been undermined, especially by the recent emphasis on economic efficiency, which has concentrated access ...

The groundfish complex is the most abundant fisheries resource off Alaska, with a combined biomass of more than 21.8 million metric tons (t). About 76% of the biomass is found in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands region, with the remainder in the Gulf of Alaska. From 2004 to 2006, groundfish catches averaged nearly 2.2 million t or about 10% of the total groundfish biomass, although harvest r...

Sea cucumbers are important resources for coastal livelihoods and ecosystems. At least 60 species are fished from more than 40 countries and most of the harvests are processed then exported to Asian markets. Sea cucumbers generally appear to have slow rates of population turnover and are easily harvested in shallow waters in the tropics. With retail prices of up to USD300–500 per kg (dried), ex...

Sea turtles interact with a variety of fishing gears across their broad geographic distributions and ontogenetic habitat shifts. Cumulative assessments of multi-gear bycatch impacts on sea turtle populations are critical for coherent fisheries bycatch management, but such estimates are difficult to achieve, due to low fisheries observer effort, and a single-species, single-fishery management fo...

Management of fisheries in the Mediterranean basin has often been described as a unique and complex challenge, due to their multi-specificity, the diversity of gear-types, and the number of nations involved. This perspective has gone hand-in-hand for decades with a lack of strong political will from decision-makers, who have been unwilling to put Mediterranean fisheries management high on their...

Ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM) was developed to move beyond single species management by incorporating ecosystem considerations for the sustainable utilization of marine resources. Due to the wide range of fishery characteristics, including different goals of fisheries management across regions and species, theoretical best practices for EBFM vary greatly. Here we highlight the lac...

Two main problems can be identified in fisheries currently: overfishing and negative effects on ecosystems (including bycatch). Both result in a reduction in natural capital. In recent years a concept for a theory of sustainability was developed at our institute. Part of the work has been to develop a strategy in fisheries for creating sustainable use systems, which can be considered as "invest...

casted the increasing need for fisheries managers to take species interactions into account. It is now widely recognized that ecosystem effects need to be considered in managing fisheries (Pauly 1998, Beamish and Mahnken 1999, Gislason et al. 2000). Steele (1996) concluded that a “regime shift in fisheries management” is required if one is to manage fisheries successfully in the context of ecos...

Fisheries management is characterized by multiple and conflicting objectives, multiple stakeholders with divergent interests and high levels of uncertainty about the dynamics of the resources being managed. This conjunction of issues can result in high levels of contention and poor outcomes in the management process. Management strategy evaluation (MSE) can assist in the resolution of these iss...