Understanding and managing enhancement fisheries systems

Aquaculture-based fisheries enhancement is a set of management approaches involving the release of cultured organisms to enhance, conserve, or restore fisheries. Enhancement has a long history, and substantial progress has been made in key areas of science underpinning the activity. Yet the contribution of enhancements to global fisheries production has remained small, and there are few outright success stories. Enhancements enter into complex fisheries systems and, to be successful, must contribute to a broad set of biological, economic, social, and institutional management objectives. In doing so, enhancements need to add value to, or outperform, alternative measures such as fishing regulation or habitat management. This is possible only under certain conditions and may require transformations in multiple biological-technical as well as market and institutional attributes of the fisheries system. I outline a framework for the integrated analysis of enhancement fisheries systems and a systematic, transparent, and stakeholder-participatory development process.