Includes bibliographical references (p. 77-84). / The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) Plan of Implementation encourages the implementation of an Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries (EAF) management by 2010. Signatory countries, which include Namibia, have adopted this as being necessary for the sustainable use of their marine resources. However, there has been little progress made towards developing simple structured guidelines for implementing an EAF within fisheries management organisations. As part of an EAF project implemented by the BCLME (Benguela Current Large Marine Ecosystem) programme, a series of Ecological Risk Assessments (ERA) were conducted for selected fisheries, which focussed on identifying all major issues related to EAF that are not adequately addressed by present management strategies. This methodology was repeated for the Namibian Rock Lobster fishery. Highly prioritised issues from the workshop were used to construct causal maps and value trees, for which indicators were suggested in consultation with stakeholders. The results of the ERA confirmed that there is a severe lack of transparency and shared understanding among stakeholders in the Namibian Rock Lobster Fishery, which is causing high tension and user conflict within the fishery. However, the importance and strength of the ERA process was found to lie in the discussion that it facilitates amongst stakeholders. Causal maps proved very useful in placing perspective on the perceived problems associated with the current management of the Rock Lobster fishery and the hierarchical structuring of value trees proved extremely useful in facilitating the transparency of the process. A list of specific objectives and suggested indicators is presented here, but there remains paucity in the data that are needed to inform some of these suggested indicators. Thresholds for these suggested indicators are defined here and are needed for evaluating the indicators for combination into an overall evaluation of the implementation of an EAF in this fishery. Expert systems are suggested here as a good tool to do so through synthesizing information from a large number of indicators for the decision-making process and to readily incorporate updated information. The tentative set of indicators presented here needs further work. However, the results of the present thesis can be used in designing such a system, to the benefit of the Namibian Rock Lobster fishery and the ecosystem this fishery depends on.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uct/oai:localhost:11427/11917 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | Basson, Janine |
| Contributors | Jarre, Astrid |
| Publisher | University of Cape Town, Faculty of Science, Department of Oceanography |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Master Thesis, Masters, MSc |
| Format | application/pdf |
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