Management of fisheries on forage species: the test-bed for ecosystem approaches to fisheries

In the 1970s and 1980s, core ideas about management of fisheries on forage species emerged from work on the dynamics of foodweb models and multispecies assessments, leading to proposals for management that took some account of the role of forage species in marine ecosystems. Key developments in those years are summarized in the first part of this paper. From the 1980s to the 2000s, studies of the response of forage species to environmental variation brought into question the robustness of management strategies for forage species. As a result, additional management strategies were proposed to accommodate environmental drivers as well as dependent predators. The paper reviews these developments. This paper brings these separate lines together in a systematic framework for evaluating the performance of six different management strategies for forage species, relative to four different ecosystem considerations, as well as relative to the contribution of forage fisheries to economic prosperity and food security. The tabulated outcomes synthesize primary and secondary literature and meeting deliberations as the application of an ecosystem approach to management has evolved. No strategy is optional for all forage fisheries. As experience accumulates, the guidance in the tables comprising the framework will improve.