Preface to the Fourth Mote Symposium on Fisheries

COLEMAN, F.; PARMA, A.M.; TRAVIS, J.

Bulletin Of Marine Sciences

ROSENSTIEL SCH MAR ATMOS SCI

Año: 2006 vol. 78 p. 407 - 409

Successful fisheries management requires integrating the dynamics of two complex systems, the marine ecosystem in which the fishery targets are embedded and the economic and behavioral systems of the people seeking to fish. The problems that scientists and managers address in their attempt to perform this integration include, among others, overfishing, overcapacity, discarding and high-grading of catch, by-catch of charismatic species, allocation disputes, litigation, fish quality, and the impacts of fishing gear. This symposium focused on contrasting the strategies and contexts associated with successful management with those associated with management failures. The Fifth William R. and Lenore Mote International Symposium in Fisheries Ecology brought together a group of people who provided their specific disciplinary perspectives and suggested solutions to the key problems in this area. The satirical title "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Integrating Marine and Human Ecology into Fisheries Management" refers to three management results. The Good represents management that has produced success (as opposed to success by good fortune or in spite of active management), and the Bad represents failures of science, that is, cases in which the best science offered incorrect management advice. Finally, the Ugly represents the inability of science and management to succeed because of the inability of a social or political system to endorse active management. The papers represent case studies and broad overviews from different disciplinary perspectives that address the following issues, to the extent that they may be relevant in determining management failure or success: (1) incentives offered to fishers, scientists, and managers; (2) governance and management accountability; and (3) uncertainty in the scientific advice.