The issue
Fisheries depends on the coastal area both
directly (e.g. resources and space) and indirectly
(e.g. factors affecting biological productivity),
rendering the sector particularly susceptible to
the impact of other land-based and sea-based
activities on the aquatic environment, its quality
and productivity. To a lesser degree, the fishery
sector also generates negative effects on other
activities competing with it for space or
resources. While many of the interactions within
fisheries, and between the sector and other
activities (agriculture, forestry, transportation,
mining, urban development, tourism, etc.), are of a
competitive or antagonistic nature, a number of
synergies also exist. If fisheries are to make an
optimal contribution to economic and social
welfare, these interactions must be taken into
account.
Possible solutions
As market forces alone are unlikely to lead to
social optimization, the interaction between
fisheries and other sectors require an effective
institutional mechanism for resources allocation,
conflict resolution and adaptive management.
Indeed, the establishment of institutional
mechanisms for inter-sectoral coordination in
specific coastal areas will be a good starting
point and pave the way to actual inter-sectoral
governance. The development and management of many
fisheries must eventually be nested within the
wider context of area- or ecosystem-based
integrated management. Approaches for this purpose
have been elaborated and tested during the last two
decades: integrated coastal areas management
(ICAM) or coastal zone management (ICZM),
integrated watershed management, Integrated
Coastal Fisheries Management (ICFM), integrated
aquaculture-agriculture (IAA), integrated
irrigation-aquaculture (IIA) - all of which are
variants of a more general concept of integrated
natural resources management (NRM).
Integrating fisheries development and management
into broader-based frameworks will make transparent
the fact that fisheries and other sectors, in a
given area or market, are competing for resources,
space - and political support. Increasing
effectiveness in that competition (and maximizing
on the synergies that might also exist) imply a
number of actions which are often easier to
enumerate than to undertake, such as:
- to establish clearly the social value of the
fisheries sector giving economic and social
factors at least as much importance as
biophysical factors;
- to consider the available trade-offs for the
use of relevant areas (e.g. basin, coastal
areas) and the relative role of fisheries among
them;
- to select fisheries objectives and
development strategies as part of wider local,
regional and national economic development and
resource allocation strategies on which the
"best use" of the aquatic environment and living
resources will depend;
- to institutionalize the development and use
of a system of indicators and reference points
on the contribution of fisheries to sustainable
development related to fisheries and global
goals set for the area, as a means to monitor
and assess policy impact;
- to lobby for modifying the institutional and
organizational context in which fisheries
operates in order to optimize the contribution
of fisheries;
- to develop the capacity of the fishery
sector to compete for resources through
training, improved organization, development of
political clout (lobbying), etc.;
- to promote the establishment of an explicit
and equitable allocation of resources between
alternative uses and users, taking account of
the dynamic nature and mobility of aquatic
resources and the problems inherent to free and
open access;
- to control and reduce fishing capacity as
needed to avoid overfishing and optimize
economic health of the sector, improving its
competitivity;
- to take explicit account of uncertainty and
variability through implementation of the
precautionary approach and adaptive management
strategies;
- to establish or improve consensus-building
and conflict-resolution mechanisms;
- to develop appropriate multidisciplinary
research for the identification and assessment
of options as well as for monitoring management
performance.
Once institutional mechanisms for inter-sectoral
coordination have been developed, two broad
approaches to inter-sectoral management can be used
and might be combined: regulations
(command-and-control), and/or the provision of
economic incentives. In a regulatory approach, the
management agency establishes detailed plans
designating who may do what in different areas and
under what conditions. The incentive approach will
seek to modify the preferences and behaviour of the
individuals through various economic instruments
(e.g. charges, subsidies, use rights and fees)
aimed at harmonizing as much as possible societal
and individual expectations. The best solution,
often based on a blend of policy instruments, will
depend on local circumstances and may change over
time.
Action taken
Many of the principles above have been adopted
and tried in a number of integrated approaches to
development and management such as ICAM, ICZM,
ICFM, IAA, and IIA, as mentioned above. Society's
recent and increasing demand for a more
ecosystem-based management is adding further
pressure on governance systems to evolve into more
integrated systems. The growing adoption of
sustainable development reference systems (SDRS) of
indicators, for which FAO guidelines are available,
offers a convenient and effective framework for
comprehensive representation of the problems'
variables. The same approach offers a practical way
of mobilizing participation and facilitating
negotiation among stakeholders.
Outlook
The probability for fisheries to persist and
flourish in a competitive environment will,
unavoidably, depend on their socio-economic
potential compared to other alternative uses of the
coastal aquatic living resources and space. The
notion of "sustainable fisheries" must be replaced
by the notion of "sustainable contribution of
fisheries to sustainable development" - integrating
the sector with others. The experience available in
Integrated Coastal Areas Management (ICAM) or
watershed management is still not very encouraging
and much more experimentation is needed, especially
as regards institutional building for
inter-sectoral coordination and governance. There
is no way out of "integration" however and, in the
absence of explicit plans for integrated
development and management, the situation of
aquatic resources will only continue to degrade
leading to serious losses of fisheries. A danger
exists for fisheries that political authorities,
faced with the potentially high political and
economic costs of environmental rehabilitation and
powerful industrial and agricultural lobbies, offer
the weakly defended fishery sector as a sacrificial
goat on the environmental altar.
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