INTRODUCTION

Fisheries are in trouble. For decades, there have been warnings that fish harvests have reached or exceeded sustainable limits and that collapse of capture fisheries might be imminent. Recent evidence has overwhelmingly confirmed these dire predictions (Pauly et al. 1997; Pauly and Maclean 2003). Despite increased fishing effort and more effective equipment, total catch levels have remained stable or decreased every year since the mid 1990s (Vannuccini 2003). Dismal as this total catch statistic might be, it unfortunately paints a deceptively rosy picture. Ever-increasing inputs of money and technology are required to merely tread water – a constant total catch under these circumstances means a diminished return per unit of fishing effort. Moreover, looking only at tonnes of fish caught (the typical representation of total catch) masks the dramatic shifts that have taken place in the species making up that total catch (Garcia and Newton 1997). Increasing catches of low-value species (so-called “trash fish”) obscures the decline in almost every high-value demersal fishery and the profound impact that changing fish populations have had on the aquatic food web.

At the same time that fishers are expending more effort to catch fewer and less valuable fish, demand for fish is increasing at a rapid pace. The human population grows year by year, and food security continues to lag behind.