Chaos, complexity and community management of fisheries

For several decades, fisheries management has been based on stock recruitment models, leading to policies designed to control the amount of effort and the quantity of fish caught. This approach has not been notably successful. In this paper we take the view that this problem arises from the complex and likely chaotic nature of fisheries. This attribute of fisheries creates a very difficult and costly information problem, which renders attempts to control the long term numerical abundance of individual species virtually impossible. We argue that feasible management must address the relatively stable parameters of fisheries systems--habitat and basic biological processes, and that this demands management attention to the fine as well as the broad scale attributes of the system. Attention to detail at these differing scales implies the need for a layered or hierarchical management structure. The need to minimize information costs also suggests an emphasis on decentralized, community-based approaches to management. A review of the anthropological literature shows that such approaches are common in many societies.