FAO.org

Inland fisheries differ from most other fisheries forming the subject of the Code in their high degree of inter-relatedness with other users of the aquatic resource. In most areas of the world the principal impacts on fisheries do not originate from the fishery itself but from outside the fishery. Consequently most aspects of the Code directed at the conservation and sustainability of the resource are under the control of a wide range of interests of superior social and financial implications for society. Implementation of the provisions of the Code in these cases is more a question of negotiation and consultation with these interests. The fishery has to be managed within the constraints imposed by these external sectors and, while there is space for conventional management of the fishery as such, much attention is paid to techniques for mitigation or rehabilitation of external impacts. Inland fisheries are increasingly sharing the problems of aquaculture in that there are attempts in many fisheries to deliberately influence the composition and productivity of the fish assemblages in favour of societal goals. These introduce concepts of sustainability which correspond more to agriculture than to conventional capture fisheries and here interpretation of some articles of the Code has to be liberal.