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Table 7. Existing proactive precautionary approaches for fisheries management (adapted and modified from Garcia, 1994; Rosenberg, 2002; Hennessey & Healey, 2000; Sissenwine& Mace, 2003) including:

• Step-wise development with effort monitoring and with accompanying research and trawl
  surveys;
• Early effort limitations instead of laissez-faire investment strategies which lead to overfishing;
• Design of institutional or financial ‘brakes’ to avoid ‘explosive’ redevelopment (e.g. Ludwig’s Ratchet) together with possible prior-authorization for ordering new vessels or borrowing money for them (before proceeding into a fishery);
• Precautionary quotas for species for which proper reliable scientific assessments are not available, that is, give priority to conserving productive capacity of the resource when there is considerable uncertainty;
• Using ‘pessimistic models’ for stocks where low resilience is suspected or established establish an institutional (policy orientation) framework for management action under the “ruleof-law”;
• Recommendations for ‘experimental adaptive management’ to pre-test systems response in multispecies assessments;
• Recommendations of catch targets below the Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) e.g. F0-1, F2/3, FMSY, and ensure that resource use be regularly reviewed for management adjustments;
• Adoption of the concept of ‘safe biological limits’, as ecosystem considerations;
• Agreement on cautious management thresholds (e.g. minimum spawning biomass) and course of action before crisis occurs and initiate corrective measures with little delay.
• Despite their general availability, the above measures and variations thereof have not been adopted widely or successfully implemented in most delineated LME’s