Abstract
Historical SettingLess than a century ago the concept of needing to manage marine environments was regarded as ridiculous. T.H. Huxley in the Report of the Royal Commission on the Decline of Fishing in the North Sea Herring Fleet of the UK wrote: ‘It is absurd to suggest that humans can have widespread impacts on the marine environment.’ About half a century later in 1952 the United Nations in one of its earliest actions established the UNCLOS (United Nations Commission on Law of the Sea) process in part to address the now recognised need to manage the seas. There were a number of reasons for this.The first was the ‘natural’ experiments of the First and Second World Wars which reduced fishing effort and were followed by large recruitments in the North Sea Herring populations which dominated and sustained those fisheries for several years after each of the wars. A second factor was recognition that the increasing range and efficiency of fishing fleets was making it increasingly possible to overexploit fish...
Published Version
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call