Aquaculture may not be the panacea for the world's food problems, but It has the potential to make important contributions to diet and incomes in some areas. This book, intended to improve planning for further development of aquaculture, examines the factors that can determine the success or failure of aquaculture projects in developing countries.

In this volume, an international group of contributors explores the newly emerging aquaculture industry. Focusing on the social and environmental dimensions of aquacultural development in both industrialized and nonindustrialized nations, they examine issues of social equity, user-group conflict, environmental impacts of production, and the mediating role of the state. They also discuss aquaculture's role in development activity-especially in sustainable development, where it can enhance community viability, coherence, and solidarity. Asserting the need for careful planning and recognizing impending political and moral choices, the contributors assess the decisionmaking process for public authorities and development agencies and consider the social consequences of these decisions. Policymakers responsible for promoting and managing this growing industry will find this volume invaluable as they begin to research and design appropriate institutional structures. In addition, scholars interested in the overall adoption and diffusion of new technologies will find here a rich source of information about a system that shares attributes with but also differs significantly from agricultural and fisheries production systems.

Following the introduction of the 200-mile extended economic zone (EEZ), many developing countries suddenly found they had large fish resources, which – wisely managed and exploited – could generate wealth and income of immense benefit. However, one constraint to this was that many countries, for historic reasons, lacked the expertise to manage fisheries on this scale. Despite the need for information, few economists and especially development economists teaching in universities and colleges were able to incorporate fisheries economics into their courses owing to the lack of readily accessible material. As a result, many rising economists were failing to recognize the global importance of fishers as an economic resource capable of generating substantial wealth and income to many countries. Economics of Fisheries Development provides an accessible exploration of this area of economics, introducing development economists to some of the problems of developing fisheries in areas of the world where fisheries now present great growth prospects. The case studies used throughout the book are nearly entirely drawn from developing countries.

Much of the improvement in material living standards in the Third World is attributable to the exploitation of nonrenewable resources such as fossil fuels and metallic ores, and to the exploitation of renewable resource systems at rates that cannot be sustained. This state of affairs presents a serious problem for the future; just as may be the case for the developed regions, a long-term perspective shows clearly that Third World countries must return to a greater dependence on renewable resources while also avoiding irreversible degradation of renewable systems and learning to manage these systems more productively. The authors of this book examine major issues in the four main renewable resource sectors—fisheries, forestry, agriculture, and water—with emphasis on the problems and benefits attendant to various use patterns and management practices.

Several decades ago, the efforts of public administrations were concentrated on developing fisheries and aquaculture and ensuring growth in production and consumption. Then, in the 1980s, as many resources became fully or overexploited, the attention of policy-makers began to focus instead on fisheries management, in addition to development of aquaculture. Subsequent recognition of the many failures in management have now led FAO member countries and other relevant stakeholders to broaden the approach and governance, that is, the sum of the legal, social, economic and political arrangements used to manage fisheries and aquaculture in a sustainable manner is currently seen as a necessary context for management and is becoming the main concern. Aquaculture continues to expand, while marine capture fisheries - when summed together worldwide - seem to have reached a ceiling. Reflecting the growing importance of aquaculture, The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture ends with a discussion of the challenges that aquaculture is facing as well as of the opportunities that are open to the sector. The discussion is based on a prospective analysis of the aquaculture sector worldwide, which was undertaken by FAO in the past two years. [Includes the fourth edition of the FAO World Fisheries and Aquaculture Atlas CD-ROM, a comprehensive and global view of marine and inland caputre fisheries and aquaculture (available in English)]