THE FAO PRECAUTIONARY APPROACH AFTER ALMOST 10 YEARS: HAVE WE PROGRESSED TOWARDS IMPLEMENTING SIMULATION‐TESTED FEEDBACK‐CONTROL MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS FOR FISHERIES MANAGEMENT?

. It is almost ten years since the FAO Technical Consultation on the Precautionary Approach to Capture Fisheries took place in Lysekil, Sweden. One outcome from this Technical Consultation was a set of guidelines on the precautionary approach to capture fisheries and species introductions. These guidelines include the need to incorporate harvest control rules in management plans. Harvest control rules should specify what action is to be taken when specified deviations from the operational targets and constraints are observed. The specification should include minimum data requirements for the types of assessment methods to be used for decision‐making. Combinations of harvest control rules, assessment methods and data collection schemes are referred to as management procedures. It is now well‐recognized that using management procedures is likely to lead to improved conservation of fishery resources, and that they should be evaluated to assess whether they are likely to achieve the goals for fishery management given the types of uncertainties that are likely to frustrate this venture. In general, evaluation of management procedures has been based on simulation modeling. This paper reviews the progress that has been made in various fisheries jurisdictions in terms of implementing management procedures, and why and where it has proved difficult or even impossible to implement management procedures.