Sustainable Fisheries Resources Management and Aquatic Ecosystem Conservation

Dear Colleagues,

Managing fisheries independently, using input–output controls in terms of space, time, species, equipment, and effort based on stock assessments and reference points or benchmarks, is no longer adequate. Concerns now involve the quantity and quality of fishery resources extracted from altered ecosystems due to changes in biogeochemical cycles of C, N, P, heavy and trace metals, and biotic mixing. This calls for management strategies that integrate fisheries with the other development activities within the same spatially explicit unit, such as an ecosystem, a basin, or a large marine ecosystem. This signifies the transition of fishery management objectives from biological and economic efficiency toward ecosystem stewardship for resilience. Yet the policies and practices of all users of the resources of an aquatic ecosystem feedback on its state. Therefore, fishery sustainability depends on changes in feedback from the policies and practices of all users within the aquatic ecosystem it operates to eliminate overfishing, pollution, climatic anomaly consequences, such as warming and acidification, and biotic mixing including invasive species and novel biological entities. How should this be modelled, and how do actual incentives and practices from fishery management and the management of other users of the aquatic ecosystem affect dominant feedback loops to raise the environmental baseline and thus re-constitute or even enhance the sustainability of fisheries?

The aim of this Special Issue on “Sustainable Fishery Resource Management and Aquatic Ecosystem Conservation” is to advance our understanding on the relationship between sustainability and ecosystem state in the case of fisheries. The relationship between the sustainability of fisheries and the state of aquatic ecosystems may be approached from the perspective of the values, policy, technology, economy, and management realms.

In this Special Issue, reflections on past system dynamics (ecosystem and fisheries) management endeavours, original new endeavours, and reviews are welcome. In particular, theoretical, experimental, and pilot/prototype/case studies from marine, brackish, and freshwater fisheries systems, where conflict among stakeholders and uncertainty regarding future stocks are overcome through:

Theme 1: alignment of diverse objectives in ecosystem-based fishery management—this involves the alignment of the objectives of different users regarding resources that maintain life support systems at a high-productivity/resilient/good state. In particular, how positive incentives to adopt available non-destructive and non-polluting technologies compare to (i) negative incentives such as emission credits and/or charges, penalties, and environmental taxes and (ii) incentives for adaptive management and adaptive restoration from institutional, economic, and environmental perspectives.

Theme 2: a priori testing of fishery management strategies with validated ecosystem models—how insights on dominant feedbacks from the behaviour and the response of a validated and adequately simulated aquatic system of interest are translated into management priorities.

Theme 3: raising the environmental baseline of fisheries systems—this may involve restoration initiatives on site, such as transplantation, the oxygenation of organically polluted waters, sewage treatment, heavy metals recovery, depletion of exotic species, and the development of less destructive or/and more selective fishing equipment or initiatives for changes offsite, such as land use and hydrologic and development practices, including life cycle design, replacement of conventional fossil fuels with renewable sources of energy, and the circular economy, that confer demonstrated positive outcomes on fishery resources by ameliorating component stressors of the current global direction.

I look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Angela Dikou
Guest Editor

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• ecosystem-based fishery management
• incentives for sustainable development of aquatic resources
• raising environmental baselines
• stabilizing vs. self-reinforcing dominant feedback loops
• adaptive management