Abstract:
The history of our fishing industry gives us insights into the ‘megatrends’ and socioeconomic forces that
will shape our future, and also provides us tools for addressing the problems of the present. The future will be less
predictable than the past, due to a wide variety of economic and physical global changes, so our best strategy lies in
flexibility. Current fisheries management models, however, are tending to be more and more rigid, not more
flexible. Global competition is also here to stay and needs to be factored into all our market decisions. To survive,
our industry needs to press for consistent, world-wide protections of marine resources, for more flexible abundancebased
management systems, for rational international markets, to make alliances with public interest and
environmental protection groups and to organize not only locally but worldwide.
