Canadian fisheries are in crisis. On both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, stories abound of fisheries closures or failures and coastal communities in difficulty. A new approach to fisheries policy is required, one which recognises the intrinsic value of all participants in the fisheries ecosystem and is capable of providing guidance on how to make policy decisions. The principles of environmental ethics provide a framework for developing justice-based fisheries policies. The environmental ethics literature is first explored, with special attention to fisheries issues. From this review, a justice-based framework is identified, in which five types of justice are viewed as pertinent to fisheries concerns. This framework is then translated into an assessment tool, based upon the Rapfish method for rapid appraisal of fisheries and using a set of justice-based ethical criteria. These criteria are evaluated and, through a paired comparison survey, further explored. An assessment of a range of Canadian marine fisheries is conducted using these ethical criteria. Subsequently, a modified Rapfish assessment, using the original criteria supplemented with additional customised criteria, is conducted for Aboriginal fisheries for Pacific salmon in British Columbia. Additionally, a study is conducted which explores preferences regarding the abundance and diversity of fisheries ecosystems. Finally, the commercial fishery for Pacific salmon in British Columbia is presented as a case study. The Rapfish assessment results are presented, and considerations as to how to operationalise just policies for this fishery are suggested. Recommendations include: balancing the composition of the commercial fleet, based upon ecological impacts of the various gear types; encouragement of local stewardship and community involvement; and inclusion of various forms of knowledge in fisheries management and decision-making.

This thesis explores the changing meaning of wind dried salmon in contemporary constructions of the culture of the Stó:lō First Nation. Wind drying has been a method of preserving salmon for the Aboriginal peoples of the lower mainland of British Columbia since time immemorial, providing significant winter provisions. However, over the course of the last one hundred years, participation in this fishing activity has been drastically decreased and currently only a handful of Stó:lō families maintain dry racks in the Fraser canyon. As a result, wind dried salmon has gone from being a staple to a delicacy, and is now valued as a cultural tradition, rather than merely as a food product. This change in culturally inscribed meaning is a product of the relationship between Stó:lō fishing activities and fishery regulations imposed by the settler state. Increasing restrictions of Aboriginal fishing rights have resulted in decreased participation and success in the Stó:lō fisheries. Furthermore, regulation has artificially categorized and segregated Stó:lō fishing activities, dislocating the commercialized fresh catch from the "subsistence" dried fish harvest. The response to this regulatory pressure has been the traditionalization of the wind dry fishery, situating the activity as a cultural symbol and a point of resistance to external control. Wind dryers currently refuse to commercialize the wind dry fishery, thus resisting outside control of the management of the fishery and the distribution of the harvest. This situation is discussed in light of anthropological understandings of the construction of traditions, and the issues of Aboriginal rights surrounding contemporary Stó:lōfishing activities.

This is a study of the human conflict over fish in late nineteenth and early twentieth century British Columbia, and of how that conflict was shaped by law. Law, understood broadly to include both the legal forms of the Canadian state and those of Native peoples, defined and in part created both Native and state fisheries. When those fisheries clashed, one finds conflict between legal systems. When one fishery sought to replace the other, its laws had to replace the other. Thus, this is a study of law and colonialism, seen through a close analysis of the conflict over fish. Native fisheries and the web of regulation surrounding them preceded non-Native interest in British Columbia's fish. The fishery was not an open-access resource, but rather a commons, defined by entitlements, prohibitions and sanctions that allowed certain activity, proscribed others, permitted one group to catch fish at certain times in particular locations with particular technology, and prohibited others. The Canadian state denied the legitimacy and even the existence of Native fisheries law in imposing its law on the fishery. This study, based largely on government records and a secondary anthropological literature, describes the legal apparatus constructed by the Canadian state to reduce Native control of the fisheries in British Columbia through the creation, in law, of the "Indian food fishery". Law became a means of constructing a particular economic and social order that marginalized Native participation in the fishery and eliminated Native control. It was a "rhetoric of legitimation" that supported state domination, but also local resistance. Native peoples and their supporters used law, both Native and state law, to defend their fisheries. The history of the conflict over fish is the history of competing legal cultures, and the struggle on the Cowichan River and the Babine River over fish weirs reveals those cultures, constructed in opposition to each other. The study concludes by integrating the local conflicts over fish into a wider literature on law and colonialism, reflecting on the role of law in particular colonial settings.

This thesis evaluates the impact of the Canadian 200-mile fisheries zone from biological, economic and social perspectives. The factors and events leading to the 200-mile zone are examined. The Canadian management regime post-extension is described. Canada derived significant benefits from the 200-mile zone including increased management authority over a vast area with major fish resources, the displacement of foreign fisheries, the development of Canadian fisheries in areas and for species not previously utilized by Canada, and the opportunity to rebuild overfished fish stocks. However, various problems and constraints have led to continued fisheries instability. These include: (1) Natural resource variability, (2) The common property nature of the resource and resultant overcapacity, (3) Fluctuations in market conditions, (4) Heavy dependence on the fisheries in isolated coastal communities, and (5) Recurrent conflict among competing users and conflicting objectives for fisheries management. / Despite Canada's abundant marine fishery resources, various combinations of these factors have contributed to a recurrent boom-and-bust pattern in many marine fisheries. Extended jurisdiction did not provide a panacea for the problems of the fisheries sector. Continued periodic fluctuations in Canada's marine fisheries and demands for government assistance can be expected unless viable alternative economic opportunities can be developed in the coastal regions.

In 2002, at the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) a plan emerged to restore the approximately 60% of global fish stocks, which have been fished to the brink of destruction, to biologically sustainable levels by 2015. This plan was made in an attempt to secure greater food security for many of the world's people. However, severe Illegal Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing in many of the world's fisheries makes the realisation of such a plan difficult, especially in the developing context where there are little means for regulating ocean fishery usage effectively. This dissertation examines the nature of IUU fishing, and attempts to find possible solutions to this pervasive problem for many coastal states in the developing world. The methods employed by the study comprise a review of literature pertaining to both theoretical and practical dilemmas, as well as a more focussed examination on IUU fishing in Senegal. Using a process of inductive analysis the case is contrasted with the theory in view of finding routes to improved resource exploitation mechanisms in the region. The study concludes that the global over-fishing crisis may create a window of opportunity for developing countries in possession of such resources to better manage their fisheries and take advantage of possible comparative advantages in international trade in fish products, thus improving balance of payments problems. However in order to achieve this, as a first measure the problem of IUU fishing must be eradicated. / Thesis (M.Pol.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2004.

Univ., Diss.--Heidelberg, 2004. / Literaturverz. S. 11 - 32.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Wollongong, 2007. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references: leaf 298-332.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Delaware, 1987. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 283-291).

The objective of this thesis is to analyse the management and redistribution policies implemented in the South African squid industry. This is done within the broader context of fisheries policies that have been implemented within the South African fishing industry as the squid industry has developed. The study therefore has an institutional basis, which reviews the development of institutional mechanisms as they have evolved to deal fisheries management problems. These mechanisms (which can either be formal or informal) consist of committees, laws and constitutions that have developed as society has progressed. Probably the most prominent of these, in terms of current fisheries policy, is the Marine Living Resources Act (MLRA) of 1998. The broad policy prescription of the MLRA basically advocates the sustainable utilisation of marine resources while outlining the need to restructure the fishing industry to address historical imbalances and to achieve equity. It is this broad objective that this thesis applies to the squid fishery. The primary means of achieving the above objective, within the squid industry, has been through the reallocation of permit rights. These rights also provide the primary means by which effort is managed. A disruption in the rights allocation process therefore has implications for resource management as well. Permits rights can be described as a form of use right or propertY right. These rights are structured according to their operational-level characteristics, or rules. Changing these rules can thus affect the efficiency or flexibility of a rights based system. This is important because initial reallocation of rights, by the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT), was based on an incomplete set of rights. This partly led to the failure of early redistribution attempts resulting in a "paper permit" market. Nevertheless, this thesis argues that redistribution attempts were based on ill-defined criteria that contributed to the failure described above. In addition to this the method through which redistribution was attempted is also questionable. This can be described as a weak redistribution strategy that did not account for all equity criteria (i.e. factors like capital ownership, employment or relative income levels). This thesis thus recommends, among other things, that an incentive based rights system be adopted and that the design of this system correctly caters of the operational-level rules mentioned above. In addition to this a strong redistribution, based on fishing capital, ownership, income and the transfer of skills, should be implemented. / KMBT_363 / Adobe Acrobat 9.54 Paper Capture Plug-in

Canadian fisheries are in crisis. On both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, stories abound of fisheries closures or failures and coastal communities in difficulty. A new approach to fisheries policy is required, one which recognises the intrinsic value of all participants in the fisheries ecosystem and is capable of providing guidance on how to make policy decisions. The principles of environmental ethics provide a framework for developing justice-based fisheries policies. The environmental ethics literature is first explored, with special attention to fisheries issues. From this review, a justice-based framework is identified, in which five types of justice are viewed as pertinent to fisheries concerns. This framework is then translated into an assessment tool, based upon the Rapfish method for rapid appraisal of fisheries and using a set of justice-based ethical criteria. These criteria are evaluated and, through a paired comparison survey, further explored. An assessment of a range of Canadian marine fisheries is conducted using these ethical criteria. Subsequently, a modified Rapfish assessment, using the original criteria supplemented with additional customised criteria, is conducted for Aboriginal fisheries for Pacific salmon in British Columbia. Additionally, a study is conducted which explores preferences regarding the abundance and diversity of fisheries ecosystems. Finally, the commercial fishery for Pacific salmon in British Columbia is presented as a case study. The Rapfish assessment results are presented, and considerations as to how to operationalise just policies for this fishery are suggested. Recommendations include: balancing the composition of the commercial fleet, based upon ecological impacts of the various gear types; encouragement of local stewardship and community involvement; and inclusion of various forms of knowledge in fisheries management and decision-making. / Science, Faculty of / Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES), Institute for / Graduate