As the ecosystem-based trend in fisheries management continues to be implemented worldwide, a thorough background of this new management approach and resulting implementation strategies is needed.
Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management in the Western Pacific
Edited by Edward Glazier
Ecosystem-based fisheries management incorporates a wide range of biological, ecological, and sociological principles in the management of living marine resources. The approach is a departure from the more simplistic single-species management approach of years past. The new approach examines the physical environment and marine fisheries in their totality and humans are considered the focal point of ecosystem-based management and related policies.
Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management in the Western Pacific documents a three-part series of workshops convened by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council to facilitate understanding of this promising new approach. The workshops brought together a diversity of scientists, resource managers, and policy experts from around the U.S. and abroad to discuss marine ecosystems and to formulate recommendations for implementing the ecosystem approach in island settings around the Western Pacific. Theoretical discussions were complemented with grounded review of the many practical challenges encountered in real-time fisheries settings around the region and beyond.
Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management in the Western Pacific is a timely and much needed collection of information that will be invaluable to those interested in developing and implementing ecosystem-based management practices across the world's oceans.
The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council uses scientific information and public involvement to facilitate conservation and wise use of living marine resources throughout the U.S. Pacific Islands. Authorized in 1976, the Council has since addressed highly complex marine fishery issues in the largest, culturally most diverse, and geographically most isolated region in the nation. The Council was the first of the nation's eight regional fishery councils to implement an ecosystem-based fishery plan, and it continues to address the realities of interconnected human and ocean systems throughout the Western and Central Pacific.
