Published by the American Geophysical Union as part of the Lecture Notes on Coastal and Estuarine Studies Series, Volume 28.

In the management of commercial marine fisheries, a variety of technical advisors along with industry and public participants interact with a decision-making entity which establishes fishery regulations intended to achieve specified objectives. Of particular interest is the advisory process which should provide impartial scientific analyses of the consequences of alternative controlling actions.

To understand the process, we first examined the objectives of management, especially the biological objectives, which we thought could be defined unequivocally, whereas social welfare objectives, being heavily loaded with values, would be more controversial. But it soon became apparent that biology imposed constraints rather than inspiring objectives. Fisheries were managed to obtain social, not biological, benefits, although the magnitude of the benefits, both now and in the future, was constrained by the continuing productivity of the resource.