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|  SIFAR's mission statement is responsive research for responsible fisheries, reflecting both the need to address demand-led activities and the principles laid out in the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries.Taken as a whole, world fisheries have grown remarkably, reaching a point where few important fish stocks remain under-utilized and many are seriously overfished. In such circumstances, development and management share the same goal: ensuring the full and sustainable use of a natural resource. | | | | Economic, social and political forces are inevitably involved as countries (in the case of shared resources) or communities within them (in the case of nationally owned resources) compete to derive the maximum allocation and benefits. The starting point, however, remains the same: an objective assessment of the sustainable production that can be expected from the resource. | | | | Despite recent important advances in aquaculture, the fisheries sector remains the only major food producing system that still relies on hunting wild stocks, most of which are even now considered under open access (e.g. open to exploitation by anyone in the high seas, or to any national in EEZs). Little attempt is made, at least in marine fisheries, to regulate species composition, to eliminate disease and predators, to control migrations or to select animals for breeding. Furthermore, the level of exploitation tends to build up, checked only by the cost of fishing set against the value of the catch. | | | | Fisheries tend to follow cycles: large catches, when stocks are abundant, encourage additional, often more efficient, entrants into the fishery. The total catch increases, but both the abundance and the size of the fish begin to diminish. The catch per unit of effort decreases and eventually signs of overfishing become apparent. The number of vessels in the fishery then begins to decrease. If the fishery remains unregulated or poorly managed, it settles down to a level that gives a low annual yield at the cost of considerable fishing effort. Its rise and fall is complete, but the social, economic and political repercussions may continue for many years to follow. | | | | Information on resources (environment, abundance, health and resilience to fishing), the fishing sector (techniques, investments, efficiency, costs, social dimensions) and the market (supply, demand, prices, outlooks) are essential to development and management of responsible and sustainable fisheries; to the elaboration of development and management plans, or stock rebuilding strategies; to the establishment of systems of indicators of sustainability; to the implementation of the precautionary approach; and in general for fisheries regulation and administration. | | | | The future of the world's capture fisheries depends to a significant extent upon the relationship between the scientific (including social and economic) assessment and political management of resources including the interface and relationships between the management authority and the stakeholders. | | | | Many important fisheries involve more than one country and are regulated by regional fishery commissions or political groupings. In some instances, the commission has its own mechanism to generate the scientific advice that it needs. In others, the scientific information is assembled and submitted by the same delegations that will eventually make the management decisions. In either case, the data is assembled and analysed by technical staff, the likely outcome of potential alternative decisions are calculated and evaluated, recommendations may be made and the final decisions are made by fishery managers and/or politicians. | | | | Historically, short-term national interests have tended to prevail over long-term needs for conservation, particularly where scientific advice has been uncertain, conflicting or inconclusive. Improvements in stock assessment and fishery models, reinforced by growing evidence of the harm done by ignoring scientific advice, now mean that fishery management is increasingly based on the best available scientific advice complemented, as required, by the precautionary approach (adopted in UNCED, the 1995 UN Fish Stock Agreement and the 1995 FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries) even though it may require tough political decisions affecting national fishing industries (particularly those concerning resource allocation). | | | | Progress is still needed both to develop national capacity (particularly in developing, small and island countries) and to ensure transparency in decision-making. Progress is also needed in the fishery science itself, to increase the contribution of social sciences; improve the understanding of ecosystems structure, functioning, and resilience; to normalize and generalise indicators of sustainability; and to further develop applications of the precautionary approach. | | | | |
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1076 Topics - 5135 Related Knowledge - 2534 Members - 34 Editors |
