The Natural Resource Region and marine policy: a case study from the New England Groundfish Fishery

This paper proposes the Natural Resource Region (NRR) as a policy tool for the management of total capital flows and interactions with Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs). The NRR is conceptualized as a network of Natural Resource Communities bound together by total capital flows and dependent on the marine resources of adjacent LMEs. The NRR is illustrated with a case study of the New England multispecies groundfish fishery, showing how ignorance by managers of tolal capital components (i.e. social, economic, cultural, human, biophysical) significantly destabilized the fishery. A NRR approach to marine policy and management is anticipated to improve the sustainability of both natural resources and natural-resource dependent communities.