Size matters: fishing less and yielding more in smaller-scale fisheries
Some of us, when thinking about fisheries, imagine those big boats trawling along the ocean floor; others have a more idyllic view and imagine somebody on a canoe with a pole in his hand while the sun sets in the background. Of course, there will be people imagining everything in between. It is not far-fetched to say that everybody is right, fisheries encompass all of these. However, each fishery has a set of factors that characterizes it: boat size, gear and the technology used are only a few examples. These factors are also highly dependent on market characteristics, as well as on the social conditions where the fishery takes place. It is no surprise then that there is no worldwide accepted definition of what is large and what is small-scale fisheries. What is considered small scale in one location may as well be interpreted as large in another. Between the 50’s and the 70’s, there was this general understanding that the future of fishing relied on the industrial s