Background

Capture fisheries are in crisis. Documents and figures on the state of global fisheries that have appeared since the 1990s point out a strongly negative trend, with three related components. The first is the decline or collapse of fish stocks, the world over. The degradation of aquatic ecosystems is reflected in the levelling off of the total world catch in the 1990s (FAO 2002a), and in the declining catches of individual fishers. The second component of crisis is fishing overcapacity. There are simply too many vessels and too many people fishing. Their aggregate activity is the main cause of the collapse of fish stocks. The third aspect of crisis relates to management. Despite signals that things were going terribly wrong, fisheries managers have been unable to reverse the trend. Thus, the foundations of fisheries management theory and practice have been called into question.

New economic players have been quick to fill in the gap. As cod stocks in the North Atlantic during 2002 reached deleterious levels, and the European Commission suggested a total ban on cod fishing, the first cod farms opened up in the Norwegian fjords. Scientists and policymakers often view aquaculture as a solution to problems faced by capture fisheries. Figures would seem to confirm their points of view: as capture fisheries went into decline, global aquaculture entered a period of strong growth, meeting an ever-increasing proportion of the demand for fish.

Capture fisheries and aquaculture would thus seem to reflect different conditions of crisis and opportunity. Whether the situation is as black-andwhite as this would suggest – and indeed we believe it is not – the comparison highlights societal phenomena that play an important part in this book. Crises and opportunities occur, in differing mixes, in all sectors and societies, and at all times. Their governance is therefore a matter of great concern.

Food security is another matter demanding attention. Five decades of development effort have not significantly impacted the incidence of poverty, particularly, but not exclusively, in the South. According to the World Bank (2001), a fifth of the world's population lives on less than US$1 a day. They constitute the world's poor. One of the multiple deprivations they suffer is a lack of food security. Fisheries and aquaculture have often been singled out as making a meaningful contribution to the alleviation of hunger and malnutrition.