That was the conclusion of a week long meeting involving scientists, economists and representatives from the regional advisory councils recently held in the ICES headquarters in Copenhagen. There is a widespread recognition that the top-down, command and control method of fisheries management has failed the Common Fisheries Policy, leading to a succession of failed measures and a system characterised by crisis management.
Long term management plans, which establish agreed biological and economic objectives for each fishery and then move progressively and steadily towards those objectives, offers a much better future than stumbling from short term measure to short term measure. The benefits of stability and moving steadily in the right direction, on the basis of a soundly based and agreed approach, will make the effort involved in establishing the plans, worthwhile.
