Английский язык: Сборник текстов и упражнений для студентов специальностей "Промышленное рыболовство". Дьякова Н.П. - 26 стр.

   contaminant                                 загрязнитель

                                  TEXT 9
                          ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT

“The overarching principles of ecosystem-based management of fisheries are an ex-
tension of the conventional principles for sustainable fisheries development to cover
the ecosystem as a whole. They aim to ensure that, despite variability, uncertainty
and likely natural changes in the ecosystem, the capacity of the aquatic ecosystems to
produce fish food, revenues, employment and, more generally, other essential servic-
es and livelihood, is maintained indefinitely for the benefit of the present and future
generations.
The main implication is the need to cater both for human as well as ecosystem well-
being. This implies conservation of ecosystem structures, processes and interactions
through sustainable use. This implies consideration of a range of frequently conflict-
ing objectives and the needed consensus may not be achievable without equitable dis-
tribution of benefits.”
These needs are widely recognised and accepted by fisheries management agencies
and interest groups worldwide, but there is still great uncertainty as to how to imple-
ment an effective ecosystem management in practice. Conventional fisheries man-
agement focuses on a single species or stock and generally assumes that the produc-
tivity of that stock is a function only of its inherent population dynamics
characteristics. However, even under this paradigm, fisheries management has been,
at best, only partially successful and major problems have emerged because of uncer-
tainty about the status and dynamics of the stock, a tendency to give priority to the
short-term social and economic needs at the expense of the longer-term sustainability
of the stock, poorly defined objectives; and institutional weaknesses, particularly in
relation to the absence of long-term rights amongst the different key stakeholders and
decision-making structures and processes. As management expands its focus from
target stock to ecosystem, all of these problems increase in an exponential way and
biological uncertainty becomes ecological uncertainty which is even more complex,
the number of competing users increases as do the resulting conflicts of interest, ob-
jectives become more complex and conflicting, and the number of stakeholders is ex-
panded to include all the users of all the different ecosystem components. Of cource,
this expanding complexity is a result of recognising the reality of the inter-
dependence of all ecosystem components, instead of the false assumption that stocks
are independent. However, while it is a major conceptual advance, the practical prob-
lems raised by this recognition are immense. This is apparent from the list of 30 ele-
ments comprising the foundation and components of ecosystem management sug-
gested by the 5th Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity.
Nevertheless, there are pragmatic ways in which to begin implementation of ecosys-
tembased fisheries management, even as we strive for greater knowledge of ecosys-
tem functioning and how to deal with complex human institutions and societies.

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