ABSTRACT
Looking from the outside in, fisheries management can seem riddled with “gloom and doom” stories from the popular media fed by hard-core conservationists. Looking from the inside out, one may infer optimism in global fisheries management given news from one highly successful fishery. The truth is that fisheries are a very mixed bag: there are both successes and failures in each sea, around each bend. Astute students of fisheries will be able to see the forest for the trees and to carefully make statements about global fisheries in a balanced manner. But the question remains how to successfully manage for sustainable fisheries. The truth is, we are only beginning to find this out. What is more well known is what not to do, because we can learn from past failures (Daw and Gray, 2005, Rice, 2006, Beddington et al., 2007, Nielsen and Holm, 2007, Simmonds, 2007, Dankel et al., 2008, Pahl-Wostl, 2009).
