Fisheries
Fishing is one of the oldest uses of the sea. Until the 1990s commercial harvest steadily increased in the United States because of advances in technology and the growing appetite of a larger population for seafood. Now, this is no longer the case. The sw
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Fishing is one of the oldest uses of the sea. Until the 1990s commercial harvest steadily increased in the United States because of advances in technology and the growing appetite of a larger population for seafood. Now, this is no longer the case. The switch from apparently ever-increasing abundance to a plateau, or at times decline, has proven particularly difficult. Both understanding the biological system—given its dramatic fluctuation from year to year—and having the basis for a management system that is respectful of natural limits, individual livelihoods, and coastal communities has proven challenging in many geographic regions. A combination of lower populations for some stocks and regulated reductions in fishing effort has resulted in declining harvest. Future management will need to reconcile the desire for harvest with the capability of the natural system. Ecosystem management integrates human needs within ecological systems and provides new perspectives for fisheries management. This chapter describes ecosystem approaches for fisheries and explains how governance either is or might change to accommodate them.
Expansion of U.S. Fisheries Commercial landings tell one story of the U.S. fisheries. They represent the tonnage of fish harvested and ultimately sold, a number that has been expanding over much of the past century (figure 10.1). In the late 1920s, the U.S. marine catch of fish and shellfish in aggregate amounted to about three billion pounds per year. After peaking in the early 1990s, the R. Burroughs, Coastal Governance, Foundations of Contemporary Environmental Studies, DOI 10.5822/978-1-61091-016-3_10, © Richard Burroughs 2011
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Catch (Billion Pounds)
164 coastal gove rnance
Years Figure 10.1. U.S. catch of fish and shellfish, 1921–2006. Harvest increased approximately fivefold until the early 1990s and has remained stable since, but at a somewhat reduced level from the peak. Annual data compiled from Fisheries of the United States, Department of Commerce, and Department of the Interior.
commercial harvest now hovers around 9.5 billion pounds per year. That is a threefold increase and a success for those who eat or sell fish. Several factors influence this expansion. First, harvesting new target species results in greater landings. Off New England, monkfish, which had been discarded because of a lack of market, now find their way into chowder and other recipes. With this market monkfish became a new target species. Second, expanding the geographic range for fishing has increased harvest. Some species that were originally found close to shore are caught offshore using larger vessels. Over time, nations claimed two hundred– mile (322-kilometer) exclusive economic zones adjacent to their coasts and established clear expectations about expansion of fisheries offshore. Also during the period shown in figure 10.1, fishing in the newly added states of Alaska and Hawaii increased total harvest for the country. Third, technological improvements in fishing equipment, in transportation, and in
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