AUTHOR=Nogué-Algueró Borja , Kallis Giorgos , Ortega Miquel 

TITLE=Limits to fishing: the case for collective self-limitation illustrated with an example of small-scale fisheries in Catalonia

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Marine Science

VOLUME=Volume 10 - 2023

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/marine-science/articles/10.3389/fmars.2023.1134725

DOI=10.3389/fmars.2023.1134725

ISSN=2296-7745

ABSTRACT=Is there a limit to the amount of fish that can be taken from the sea? This question echoes the concern of the broader environmental movement in asking: are there ‘limits to growth’? If the answer to this question is ‘yes’, then what needs to be done to remain within sustainable limits? Fifty years after publication of the landmark report Limits to Growth, new theories about limits highlight the importance of collective self-limitation, including fisheries management, in place of external, top-down determination and imposition of limits. In this paper, we consider the shift in fisheries governance from regulating and imposing Maximum Sustainable Yields to collectively co-managing territories and ecosystems as symptomatic of a general turn from externally-imposed to self-imposed limitations. We show how perceptions and practices of limits are changing, based on an in-depth participatory observation study of six small-scale fishery co-management schemes located off the Catalan coast in the Mediterranean. The study evidences the challenges fishers face in attempting to define the limits of their sovereignty to manage external forces that are often beyond their control.