ABSTRACT
Many of the world’s fisheries are challenged by a combination of overcapacity, overharvesting, habitat damage and poor economic returns. For the first time ever it appears the world’s total harvest of fish from wild stocks is in decline because of over-fishing (Hilborn et al. 2003). The challenge is such that over a decade ago the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations noted ‘… many conservatively-targeted quota management systems have failed, even for proprietary resources of EEZs, …’ (FAO 1993, p. 37).
