THE MANAGEMENT OF FISHERIES AND MARINE ECOSYSTEMS

The global marine fish catch is approaching its upper limit. The numbe r of overfished populations, as Well as the indirect effects of fisher ies on marine ecosystems, indicate that management has failed to achie ve a principal goal, sustainability. This failure is primarily due to continually increasing harvest rates in response to incessant sociopol itical pressure for greater harvests and the intrinsic uncertainty in predicting the harvest that will cause population collapse. A more hol istic approach incorporating interspecific interactions and physical e nvironmental influences would contribute to greater sustainability by reducing the uncertainty in predictions. However, transforming the man agement process to reduce the influence of pressure for greater harves t holds more immediate promise.