Chaos, complexity and community management of fisheries: an appraisal

Wilson et al suggest that fishery systems are complex and may be characterized by chaotic nonlinear dynamics. They conclude that constraints on how, when, and where fish are caught (‘parametric’ management approaches), effected at the local level, should be implemented in favor of direct controls. Here, I evaluate these arguments and conclude that (a) there is currently little evidence to support the conclusion that fish populations are chaotic (b) any focus on policy tools is not meaningful in the absence of clearly stated and reasonable policy objectives (c) monitoring and control of removals from exploited systems must be an integral part of any management program and (d) any evaluation of data requirements under parametric management must consider validation of its performance and the possibility of changes in the parameters of the system over time.