Overview

Longhurst examines the proposition, central to fisheries science, that a fishery creates its own natural resource by the compensatory growth it induces in the fish, and that this is sustainable. His novel analysis of the reproductive ecology of bony fish of cooler seas offers some support for this, but a review of fisheries past and present confirms that sustainability is rarely achieved. The relatively open structure and strong variability of marine ecosystems is discussed in relation to the reliability of resources used by the industrial-level fishing that became globalised during the 20th century. This was associated with an extraordinary lack of regulation in most seas, and a widespread avoidance of regulation where it did exist. Sustained fisheries can only be expected where social conditions permit strict regulation and where politicians have no personal interest in outcomes despite current enthusiasm for ecosystem-based approaches or for transferable property rights.

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9781139195928

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'A highly readable and insightful analysis of prominent failures in world fisheries management from an eminent marine scientist.' Peter Koeller, Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia

'A highly readable and insightful analysis of prominent failures in world fisheries management from an eminent marine scientist.' Peter Koeller, Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia A highly readable and insightful analysis of prominent failures in world fisheries management from an eminent marine scientist. Peter Koeller, Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Dartmouth, N.S. This is great book that will challenge the cherished theories and beliefs of almost anyone working in the area of fisheries management. Some of the shibboleths of the fisheries management and fisheries ecological communities he challenges include (1) fishing can be sustainable, (2) the basic assumptions of modern fisheries population dynamics models have any biological realism, (3) that the collapse of the Northern cod stock was simply overfishing and (4) except in the most extreme cases there is a relationship between spawning stock size and recruitment. The book provides a valuable historical perspective on both marine ecosystems, and fisheries management. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in marine fisheries. Professor Ray Hilborn, School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington I say without hesitation this is a book that should be read by every scientist and, indeed every bureaucrat and person operating within the fishing industry and its associated sea-food industries. Sidney Holt

Author Information

Alan Longhurst began his career in fisheries science, but is best known as a biological oceanographer, being the first Director of the Southwest Fisheries Science Center of the US NMFS in La Jolla, California, and later the Director-General of the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Nova Scotia, Canada. He produced the first estimate of global plant production in the oceans using satellite imagery, and also quantified vertical carbon flux through the planktonic ecosystem. More recently, in reaction to disastrous Canadian management of NW Atlantic cod stocks, he has offered a number of critical reviews of several aspects of fishery management science. He retired in 1995 and now divides his time between south-west France and Nova Scotia.

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