INTRODUCTION

We begin with a background discussion highlighting the global fisheries crisis that implies need for expanded application of ethical consideration to fisheries. A general discussion of ethics follows to provide some context for particular applications to fisheries governance. We outline principles in law and policy that may reverse the present fisheries downward spiral. Discussed are the role of science and risk assessment, the precautionary principle, the public trust doctrine, an effective female work model, effective commons management, and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries (FAO 1995). Some recommendations are based on proven results; others rest on speculation, as one might expect within a regime of adaptive management. In each instance, we endorse changes in management behavior on the part of all participants that should result in sustainable and equitably shared fisheries.

Modern technology, that sometimes useful, sometimes dreadful set of human inventions, has facilitated the emergence of environmental crises around the globe. Among all species, we are the one that has found the most effective ways to escape natural constraints, for a period of time, by employing technology to satisfy our myriad, insatiable needs and desires. We know that early humans using simple techniques such as spears extinguished species in North America and Australia. But now we have positioned ourselves to extinguish not just a species here and there, but thousands of species and vast ecosystems in a very short time-frame.