Speaking for themselves: new acts, new actors and a New Deal in a reinvented fisheries management

Judged by a dismal record, the methodology, data, institutions and policy goals for fisheries stand worldwide in need of reinventing. Despite many new tools available for considering uncertainty, incorporating multiple data sources and listening to a variety of stakeholders, a reinvented fisheries management needs to adopt new, broader policy goals and to find new ways to examine, predict, shape, and ultimately mitigate the impact of fisheries on aquatic ecosystems. In parallel, new actors are asking for a voice in fisheries management, and for new legislative and other arrangements that will be required to accommodate their roles. The alternative to the inclusion of these new acts and actors, i.e. continuation of the present single-species focus, centralized arrangements, ineffective control of human fishing, and the resource exploitation patterns they induce, imply no less than a miserable, unrelenting erosion, and an eventual destruction of marine fisheries resources.