Abstract

  We are approaching the limits to World fish yields, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain the stocks in the face of allocative disputes between fisheries and competing water uses. A new strategy is needed to integrate aquatic ecosystem management into the larger context of Environmentally Sustainable Development. This will need to span jurisdictions and interest sectors in long-range environment-economy planning. It is suggested that this process is impossible within conventional government infrastructures, and that a new movement is needed, involving multi-sector, independent public participation.

Keywords: fisheries, management, ecosystem, sustainability

1 Based on a Working Paper for the U.N. Seminar on Ecosystem Approach to Water Management, Oslo, Norway, May 1991.