Institutional Structures for Ecosystem-based Fisheries Management: B Ideas from Hawaii

Abstract

"The concept of ecosystem-based fisheries management has rapidly gained currency and attempts to codify it are being made in many forums. A variety of community-based fishery management approaches have been suggested for small-scale fisheries, and the federal regional fisheries management council in the U.S. Pacific island areas has proposed archipelagic-oriented Fishery Ecosystem Plans for its various jurisdictions. At the same time, the socioeconomic and institutional structure of ecosystem-based management remains difficult to resolve.

"The challenges of integrating ecosystem knowledge into fisheries management arise from the fact that many complex and simultaneous processes are ongoing in the marine environment, and human activities affect these systems in many ways. The intersection of private ownership and common use regimes exacerbates these difficulties. Thus ecosystem-based management can be seen as the intersection of political and ownership jurisdictions with the ambiguities of science that all this complexity implies. So it is natural that the ecosystem approach to management involves many if not all of the same management and conservation issues as our existing mandates but with increased emphasis on jurisdictional issues (whether domestic or international).

"This paper explores these ideas in the context of fisheries management in the central and western Pacific."