To the reader this report may seem to catalogue disaster rather than success, problems rather than solutions. To a considerable extent this reflects the situation of fisheries management today. Yet fisheries management, as we have indicated, is essential, if fisheries are to be a continuing source of benefit - providing food and secure work places in coastal communities as well as a substantial contribution to economic welfare. A central motive behind the theme of this paper has been to indicate that, in managing fisheries, developed countries have made and indeed are making mistakes. In part this reflects the problems of the previous international ocean regime. Developing countries, particularly those with developing fisheries, may find it valuable to learn by these mistakes, rather than to adopt the management practices of the developed world. A number of techniques for controlling fishing effort have been catalogued in this paper and their successes, as well as the more numerous failures, can be guides for improved management.
The central message is that there is no single way of regulating fisheries. Successful programmes of fisheries management will involve a mix of regulatory and other devices. However, there is no point in seeking for a mixture which will provide some perfect solution for all time. Economic and social situations develop, the behaviour of the fish resources of the oceans are variable and to a considerable extent unpredictable, and hence management measures will have to alter with changing circumstances. It is therefore essential to recognize that management must be flexible, new measures to regulate effort may need to be introduced and other ones abandoned. The management scheme that is designed to last for ever will fail, perhaps as badly as the absence of management. This flexibility will be greatly facilitated if fishermen and others engaged in the fishing industry can be involved in the management process. Where measures are either misunderstood or are unpopular with industry, they will be difficult and costly to enforce.
It is also important to recognize the limitations of the science of fisheries. For the foreseeable future the detailed behaviour of fish stocks will be largely unpredictable. This is not to say that the science is useless, rather that it has unavoidable limitations. The same considerations apply to monitoring. A recognition of these limitations is essential for proper management. However, there are useful distinctions that can be made, different types of fisheries are predictable to different degrees, they will therefore need monitoring to different degrees and their management will need to be different.
For certain fisheries a steady state picture of the fish resource and the fishery upon it will be useful for management. In other situations it will be grossly misleading. In the same way, it may be concluded that the economic understanding of fisheries has failed to properly identify the consequence of risk in unpredictable or fluctuating fisheries. As a result, the economic distortions created by subsidies and other financial assistance have exacerbated instability in fisheries instead of designing programmes that can adjust to risk as can be found in agricultural programmes. In addition it appears that the equity considerations for which fishery administrators must react to are not clearly specified, and in fact inadequate attention has been given to the means of achieving such equity changes. Finally it may be said that from the tone of the Consultation, the usefulness of convening a forum of varying fisheries specialists was most appropriate. Given the frustration in seeking appropriate management techniques, it may be hoped that discussions will continue.
In the previous section, we have tried to describe some of the main types of fishery, the special problems they pose and the sorts of management measures that are appropriate to them.
These differences in resource type are complemented by differences in the social structure and economies from country to country. The implication is that each fishery will have special circumstances which will require different regulatory measures to different degrees. The only certainty is that these circumstances will change and new measures will be needed.
One of the most important sources of change will be development, but often indiscriminate actions to encourage development have unfortunate effects on the management of the fishery. This implies that fishery development and management will be more successful if they are integrated, whether within a country or within an international agency.
