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Future challenges for Approaches to Fisheries Management Based on
Ecosystem Considerations
Pavan Kumar1, Meenu Rani2
1
Department of Remote Sensing, Kumaun University, Almora, Uttarakhand, India; E-Mail,
[email protected]
2
Department of Remote Sensing, PDFSR, India; E-Mail, [email protected]
Abstract:
Marine ecosystems are enormously variable and complex. Ecosystem-based management can be
an important complement to existing fisheries management approaches. Ecosystems are complex
and dynamic natural units that produce goods and services beyond those of benefit to fisheries.
Because fisheries have a direct impact on the ecosystem, which is also impacted by other human
activities, they need to be managed in an ecosystem context. A comprehensive ecosystem-based
fisheries management approach would require managers to consider all interactions that a target
fish stock has with predators, competitors, and prey species; the effects of weather and climate
on fisheries biology and ecology; the complex interactions between fishes and their habitat; and
the effects of fishing on fish stocks and their habitat. However, the approach need not be
endlessly complicated. An initial step may require only that managers consider how the
harvesting of one species might impact other species in the ecosystem. Fishery management
decisions made at this level of understanding can prevent significant and potentially irreversible
changes in marine ecosystems caused by fishing. The effect has been an increasing societal
concern about the sustainability of fisheries and their environment during the last five decades.
In order to improve the sector’s image and sustainability, fisheries governance is required to
become more effective and risk adverse, taking account of the ecosystem’s limits as well as
being responsive to environmental changes and conservative of ecosystem components.