Management of catches, effort and exploitation pattern are considered the most effective measures to control fishing mortality and ultimately ensure productivity and sustainability of fisheries. Despite the growing concerns about the spatial dimension of fisheries, the distribution of resources and fishing effort in space is seldom considered in assessment and management processes. Here we prop...

Melnychuk et al.’s comments in PNAS (1) that successful fisheries management requires the “capacity to limit fishing pressure” and “scientists are generally unanimous in calling for stronger management” echo comments made in many earlier publications. However, their conclusions about specific fisheries and management approaches lack credibility. Their analysis relies on an opinion survey, using...

Based on an earlier published ecosystem model, we have explored possible effects of different management scenarios for the Baltic Sea. The scenarios include an oligotrophication of the system, a drastic increase in the number of seals, and changes in the fishery management. From these simulations we conclude that fisheries, seals, and eutrophication all have strong and interacting impacts on th...

Freshwater fisheries are central to food security in China and this remains one of the most important priorities for the growing human population. Thus, combining ecosystem restoration with economics is pivotal in setting successful conservation in China. Here, we have developed a practical management model that combines fishery improvement with conservation. For six years, a ban on fertilizer ...

This report identifies the different effects the variability of fisheries resources has on society, the different groups (at individual, national and international level) which play a role in the decision-making process, and those sectors that are more seriously affected by resource fluctuations. The report also discusses the development of some fisheries in the past, sources of problems relate...

Marine protected areas have been widely touted as both as an insurance policy against fishery management failures and as an integral part of an optimal management strategy for some fisheries. However, incorrectly sized or located MPAs may actually increase the risk of depletion or collapse of some species, and can easily reduce the sustainable value of the system of fisheries they impact. Furth...

This Fisheries Centre Research Report presents eleven papers that describe whole-ecosystem models of four Antarctic areas: the Antarctic Peninsula, Kerguelen Islands, Falkland Islands, and the Southern Plateau region, New Zealand. A mass-balance model, sources of data, and derivations of model parameters are detailed for each region. Dynamic simulation models for the Antarctic Peninsula and the...

Small-scale fisheries face a suite of multi-level challenges, making the reliance on centralized governance approaches and self-governance alone unlikely to lead to long enduring solutions. Although co-management has been long proposed as a promising institutional arrangement, co-management can take many forms; thus, not any type of co-management will be effective for the suite of challenges fa...

The fisheries crisis of the last decades and the overexploitation of a great number of stocks have revealed that the scientific knowledge available about the dynamics of the marine ecosystems and needed for the management of the fisheries is inadequate. This problem is critical when the management of coastal ecosystems and artisanal fisheries is involved. These systems show a great complexity d...

his paper deals with the design of modelling tools suitable for investigating the consequences of alternative policies on the dynamics of resources and fisheries, such as the evaluation of marine protected areas (MPA). We first review the numerous models that have been developed for this purpose, and compare them from several standpoints: population modelling, exploitation modelling and managem...