Ecological, Economic, Social, and Governance Indicators for Responsive Fisheries Management Systems: an EcoFishMan approach

Fisheries outcome targets and their associated indicators can be classified in four dimensions: ecological, economic, social, and governance. As outlined in the ECOFISHMAN project, ecological indicators measure the trends in the state of ecological functions, economic indicators measure the state of the human component in activities that increase conventional gross national product and trends in production accounts and economic growth, social indicators measure the human dimensions focusing on communities, household demographics and their wellbeing, and governance indicators measure the performance of rules and institutions, of the mechanism and processes to articulate interest, and of the interactions and roles of the state, civil society, and private sector in fisheries management. The four main dimensions of a fishery are associated with different criteria that represent those properties that will be affected by the process of sustainability. Here we propose and discuss a list of selected ecological, economic, social, governance indicators for outcome targets relevant in responsive fisheries management systems (RFMS) using results-based management (RBM).