Abstract

Fisheries management has undergone substantial changes since 1948, the first year of the Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute. As reflected in the Proceedings of the GCFI, these changes are driven by a variety of factors, including the extent of fishing, the techniques and approaches available, changes in global/regional fisheries governance, attitudes concerning science and the external impacts to fisheries, as well as the make up of the GCFI itself. Among the more obvious changes are a shift in concern from fisheries development to regulation and then more to conservation, with concern shifting from individual fisheries to ecosystem scales, a shift to more quantitative approaches coupled with a subsequent return to less data-hungry approaches, and the rise of the social sciences and the role of NGO’s in fisheries management. Some of these changes are as much a reflection of the change in GCFI leadership over time, from an organization dominated by industry, fishers and managers with a strong US bias to one dominated by government and academic scientists, and NGO representatives with significant participation by non-US and small island nations. One constant has been that the increased application of science toward management has always been problem driven and therefore always reactive and unable to keep pace with increasing stressors on fisheries and fishery resources. This suggests that role of science in management, and therefore management itself will continue to evolve until issues and response times are commensurate with management needs and capabilities.

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