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A GUIDE TO THE FISHERIES CRISIS.
RESOURCES, MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS AND POLICIES

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glossary A-E

glossary F-M

Glossary^(*)

N to Z

Offshore waters

Waters located well beyond the shores (beyond the edge of the nearshore or inshore waters). Are part of the oceanic environment.

Open access

Open access resources can result from the breaking down of common property resource management institutions or from the privatization or nationalization of common resources. Because these resources are freely available or at minimal costs, they are frequently over-exploited and degraded.
Scialabba (1998)

Optimum Sustainable Yield (OSY)

The best sustainable yield, for the combined purposes of the fishing industry, of conservation, and of the nation as a whole. It has no hard and fast definition. In Canada, the yield when fishing at F_0.1 is often used as a practical replacement for OSY.
Gough and Kenchington (1995)

Pelagic Fishing

Fish stocks that swim free in the open waters between the sea-bed and the surface.

Phytoplankton (Planktonic plants)

Small, usually microscopic plants drifting in the upper layers of the ocean, consuming nutrients and light energy to produce biomass. In particularly nutrient-rich conditions (including eutrophication) phytoplankton blooms may occur and could be toxic.
Scialabba (1998).

Plankton (See also phytoplankton)

Floating organisms whose movements are more or less dependent on currents. While some zoo-plankton exhibit active swimming movements that aid in maintaining vertical position, plankton as a whole is unable to move against appreciable currents.
Odum (1959).

Policy

The course of action for an undertaking adopted by a government, a person or another party. Instruments that exist to support policy and tools used to achieve policy objectives comprise some or all of the following: societal instruments, economic and command and control instruments, direct government involvement and institutional and organisational arrangements. It is to be mentioned that although law may be used as a policy instrument, there are cases where law may impose constraints on what policies may be adopted. For example, if the Constitution states that the shore is the patrimony of the nation or requires the payment of compensation for the expropriation of the land, this would restrict the policies which could be adopted for ICAM.
Scialabba (1998)

Precautionary approach

A set of agreed cost-effective measures and actions, including future courses of action, which ensures prudent foresight, reduces or avoids risk to the resource, the environment, and the people, to the extent possible, taking explicitly into account existing uncertainties and the potential consequences of being wrong".
García (1996)

Primary productivity

The rate at which energy is stored (i.e. the amount of energy fixed in a given time) by photosynthetic and chemosynthetic activity of producer organisms (chiefly green plants) in the form of organisms substances which can be used as food materials). Values are expressed in Grams of dry organic matter (or carbon) produces per square meter per day.
Odum (1959)

Property right

A legal right or interest in respect to a specific property. A type of resource ownership by an individual (individual right), a group (communal right) or a State.

Quota

A share of the Total Allowable Catch (TAC) allocated to an operating unit such as a country, a vessel, a company or an individual fisherman (individual quota) depending on the system of allocation. Quotas may or may not be transferable, inheritable, and tradable. While generally used to allocate total allowable catch, quotas could be used also to allocate fishing effort or biomass.

Red Tide

Proliferation of marine plankton that is toxic and often fatal to fish. This natural phenomenon is stimulated by phosphorus and other nutrients that are discharged into waterways by human beings. The colour of the tide can be red, yellow, green or brown.
United Nations (1997)

Senescent fishery

A fishery in which, following a period of "full development" , annual yields have declined steadily and significantly for a number of years and is now yielding much less that its historical maximum production. While the causes of "senescence" could be many, it is usually assumed that overfishing is the main one, combined or not with unfavourable climatic conditions.

Stakeholders

A large group of individuals and groups of individuals (including governmental and non-governmental institutions, traditional communities, universities, research institutions, development agencies and banks, donors, etc.) with an interest or claim (whether stated or implied) which has the potential of being impacted by or having an impact on a given project and its objectives. Stakeholder groups that have a direct or indirect -stake- can be at the household, community, local, regional, national, or international levels.
Scialabba (1998)

Straddling Stocks (or Species)

Species that move back and for between the Fishing Exclusion Zones and the High Seas.

TAC

A limit on the amount of stock that can be caught for a specific species. TACs are fixed by administrative bodies for individual species on the basis of scientific reports. The TACs then established by the corresponding administration may be higher than those recommended by scientists on the basis of political and social considerations or the economic viability of the sector.

Territorial sea

The area beyond the tidal base line of the open coasts of a country over which that country exercises full control except for innocent passage of foreign vessels. Set at a maximum of 12 nautical miles in breadth by the 1982 Law of the Sea Treaty, the United States claims territorial waters three nautical miles in width.
Keen (1998)

UNCLOS

United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Adopted in 1982. Entered into force in 1994.

Undeveloped fishery

A fishery in its very early stage of development, with very low levels of fishing effort, producing much lower quantities of fish than its potential maximum yield.

Upwelling

Upward movement of cool and nutrient-rich sub-surface waters towards the surface. There exist various types of upwelling. For fisheries, the most important type is the wind-induced coastal upwelling where the upward movement is a consequence of wind stress (along shore) and Eckman transport (offshore).

Waste

Physical waste is product that is caught but does not have market value. It is a by-product of the production process which is not utilized.
ECD (1996).