Marine NZ

The Case for Data-less Marine Resource Management: Examples from Tropical Nearshore Finfisheries
Author(s): R E Johannes

Managing most marine finfisheries to achieve optimum yields is an unattainable dream. The author argues in this paper that protecting these resources from serious depletion through precautionary management seems the only practical option. However, the author accepts that even this is of limited application if scientific data is demanded for each managed fishery - there are too few researchers to do the work and, in any event, such research would usually not be cost-effective. The paper concludes that we need not merely precautionary management; we need data-less management.