Measuring the Success of Seafood Ecolabelling - SEAFOOD Ecolabelling: Principles and Practice - page 210

ecosystem impacts, taking account of the activities of all users and of the natural
variability of marine ecosystems to maintain health and integrity of ecosystems
(Gislason et al . 2000, RCEP 2004, US Oceans Commission 2004). In ecosystem-
based management, integrated governance arrangements, participation of stake-
holders, and the integrity of ecosystems, habitats and species are all important
features and are crucial elements of the new paradigms in resource management
(e.g. Ward et al . 2002, Pikitch et al . 2004).
The state of global fisheries management systems and their capacity to adapt to
the modern-day concerns of over-exploitation and ecological impacts may be best
summarised as follows:
We may need to be satisfied with management systems that are reactive and adaptive,
but reduce the risk of stock collapse by not seeking to maximise yields, since this ap-
parently increases the accompanying risk of radical ecosystem change. With respect
to multispecies fishery management, where different fleets specialise in harvesting
trophically linked components of the same food web, quota-setting has begun to take
this into account. Examples here include consideration of predator-prey interactions
between cod and capelin in the setting of capelin TACS in the North Atlantic waters
of Canada, and the implicit setting aside of a component of the production of the prey
species, krill, to cover the food requirements of birds, marine mammals and other
dependent predators in setting the krill TAC in waters under CCAMLR jurisdiction'
(Caddy & Cochrane 2001).
Beyond local and regional impacts, fisheries are recognised as an important fac-
tor affecting the resilience of the global oceans, and increasing the risk of major
ecological regime shifts (Scheffer et al. 2001, Folke et al . 2004). This points di-
rectly to the need for improved integration of fisheries management systems into
the sustainable management of the oceans at a range of scales from local to global,
including improved vertical integration of management objectives and strategies
relating to ocean biodiversity and dynamics much more broadly than just manage-
ment of directly exploited species (Pikitch et al . 2004).
The issues of sustainability span many disciplines of science and technology
(Kurlansky 1999). Sustainability has to deal with concerns about wealth generation
for local communities and national jurisdictions, regional employment and fishing
industry facilities, shipbuilding and related marine industries, food security for lo-
cal communities, ecological impacts on habitats and ecosystems, trophic linkages
with other species - both fished and unfished, the level of harvest that can be main-
tained in the face of fluctuating ocean environment conditions and many more. New
fisheries management paradigms anticipate that fisheries managers will respect and
respond to the issues of sustainability within their fishery management systems, and
this is placing fishery managers under considerable stress as they move to adopt
and incorporate this additional breadth of management needs. Also, the move to-
wards more ecosystem-based approaches to fisheries management, consistent with