PARENT SESSION
Oral Session #108: Precautionary Principle and Restoration .
Presiding: M. O'Brien
Friday, August 9. 9:00 AM to 10:30 AM. Palo Verde Room, Radisson.

Fisheries, marine ecosystems, and public responsibility.

THORNE-MILLER, BOYCE^*,1, ¹ OCEAN ADVOCATES, DICKERSON, MD

ABSTRACT- Marine fisheries have been highly unregulated in the past and the approach of fishers for centuries has been to pursue fish wherever they live and to find better ways to catch as many fish as possible. This has led to technological inventiveness and the global demise of fish populations and marine ecosystems. While public money has often subsidized the destruction, fishing itself has been a private, largely unregulated, endeavor. All this has been done ostensibly on behalf of the public who need fish for food, yet the public has neither asked for nor been offered the opportunity to play a major role in the governance and operation of fisheries. Nor has a fair and equal distribution of fish to those who need it been guaranteed. Nevertheless, FAO claims that fisheries and fish farming must produce enough fish to make up the food deficit between agriculture production and population growth, with no mention of the responsibility for reducing or reversing that growth. There is mysterious optimism that a new era of tighter fisheries regulations and restoration (i.e., a system of marine protected areas) would lead to the recovery of fish populations so that annual capture fisheries yields would increase over past maximum yields. This paper examines whether there should be more direct responsibility on the public to participate in critical decisions about their food supply, using fisheries and marine protected areas as an example. Could such involvement lead people to readdress and take responsibility for their own reproductive capacity and the implication for food supplies and ecosystems that support all life on earth?

KEY WORDS: fisheries, population, habitat