The Changing Nature of Fisheries Management and Implications for Science

The relationship between fisheries management and fisheries science has become more complex and more challenging over recent years as we move from a fish stock-focused approach to the management of fisheries with the objective of maximum sustainable yield, to an approach with multiple objectives encompassing the precautionary approach, ecosystem-based management, and industry economic viability. At its core, the precautionary approach is about taking more cautious measures in the face of uncertainty. Linked to this is the growing recognition of the need to take on ecosystem approach to fisheries management. The increasing lack of stability in ocean conditions and uncertainty around the effect of changing ocean conditions has enhanced the need to be more comprehensive in our approach. All this serves to make fisheries management more complex than it was in the past. Whereas fisheries science advice in the past was focused largely on stock biomass and productivity, fisheries science is now being asked to provide advice, information, and analysis on stock interactions and predation, on spawning seasons and locations, on sensitive areas of significance to the species, on the effect of various gear technologies on benthic communities, on the effect of the increasing number of invasive species in the ecosystem, and on changing ocean conditions and their potential effect on stock dynamics now and in the future. With static funding resources over the past decade, scientists have struggled to find ways to respond to these new queries and to still provide basic stock status advice that continues to be and will continue to be the core scientific requirement for making fisheries management decisions. This state of affairs has stretched the capacity of fisheries science to respond to the growing array of information requests that are now considered necessary to make responsible decisions. Indeed, the growing complexity and challenges for fisheries management, for fisheries science and for the fishing industry as a whole, has significantly stretched static resources but has been addressed by unique responses, depending on the circumstances, and the development of new partnerships and working arrangements between fisheries managers, scientists, and the fishing industry.