Ecocentric fisheries management in European Seas volume II : e-tools, management scenarios, and capacity building to support decision making in fisheries and ecosystems

Abstract

Fisheries management has traditionally focused on maintaining the productivity of individual commercially exploited stocks, and ecosystem processes are rarely incorporated into operational decision-making (Skern-Mauritzen et al., 2016). However, fishing affects not only target species but also their predators, prey and competitors, as well as non-target species, habitats, and the structure and functioning of entire food webs (Pauly et al., 1998; Pikitch et al., 2004). There is increasing awareness that these effects interact with climate change, pollution, biological invasions, habitat alteration, and the expanding use of marine space, exposing marine ecosystems to multiple and potentially cumulative pressures (Bastardie et al., 2021; Korpinen et al., 2021). [excerpt]