Frequently Asked Questions

In most regions, “management procedure” and “harvest strategy” are used synonymously. However, in some regions, like the western Pacific, a management procedure is considered a type of harvest strategy. In that case, the distinction is that a “harvest strategy” is a more general management framework, whereas each component of a “management procedure” is formally specified, and the combination of monitoring data, analysis method, and harvest control rule has been simulation tested using MSE to demonstrate adequately robust performance in the face of plausible uncertainties about stock and fishery dynamics. It is this definition that HarvestStrategies.org uses for “management procedure” and “harvest strategy.”

Effective long-term management of the world’s fish stocks requires science, stakeholder engagement, and advanced planning. Harvest strategies can help enable effective fisheries management by:

• Enabling sustainability by setting pre-agreed rules and objectives that help maintain fish populations and catches at target levels over the long term
• Improving decision-making by accounting for natural variability and uncertainty, avoiding time-consuming and costly political negotiations, and enabling managers to act precautionarily and swiftly.
• Facilitating greater transparency by providing all stakeholders with a clear, long-term vision of a sustainable stock and fishery.
• Increasing market stability and improving the industry’s ability to plan because management decisions are predictable.

Check out our animation, “Fishing for the Future: The Case for Harvest Strategies,” and our blogs to learn more about the benefits of harvest strategies.

Robust harvest strategies, before they are implemented, are tested through a scientific process called management strategy evaluation (MSE), used to simulate the workings of a fisheries system and test whether potential harvest strategies can achieve the pre-agreed management objectives. MSE helps to identify the harvest strategy likely to perform best, regardless of uncertainty, and balance trade-offs amid competing management objectives. Because MSE is so fundamental to harvest strategies, some consider the term to encompass the process of harvest strategy development itself. Explore our data visualization tools for MSE results, and check out our animation to learn more about MSE.

In most regions, “management procedure” and “harvest strategy” are used synonymously. However, in some regions, like the western Pacific, a management procedure is considered a type of harvest strategy. In that case, the distinction is that a “harvest strategy” is a more general management framework, whereas each component of a “management procedure” is formally specified, and the combination of monitoring data, analysis method, and harvest control rule has been simulation tested using MSE to demonstrate adequately robust performance in the face of plausible uncertainties about stock and fishery dynamics. It is this definition that HarvestStrategies.org uses for “management procedure” and “harvest strategy.”

A harvest strategy, also known as a management procedure, is a pre-agreed framework for making fisheries management decisions (such as catch or effort limits) to achieve a long-term vision for the fish and fishery. Before they are implemented, robust harvest strategies are tested through a process that involves fishery scientists, managers, and other stakeholders, which is called management strategy evaluation (MSE).

Check out our resources to learn more about the basic elements of a harvest strategy and how the process works.

Harvest strategies contribute significantly to the economic viability of fisheries by promoting long-term sustainability and stability, which in turn helps bolster fishing opportunities and market confidence. Harvest strategies provide the fishing industry with the stability needed for business planning and investment by ensuring that management decisions are predictable and based on data-driven benchmarks. This predictability helps mitigate risks associated with overfishing or sudden regulatory changes and enhances access to new markets through sustainable seafood certifications.

Fisheries that follow scientifically sound harvest strategies are more likely to meet the requirements for eco-labeling programs such as the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), opening doors to higher-value markets and consumer demand for sustainably sourced products. Also, maintaining target abundance levels ensures healthy fish populations, benefiting the ecosystem and fishery. Healthy stocks translate to more consistent yields, reducing variability in catches and improving the long-term profitability of the industry.

Harvest strategies are being used successfully worldwide for all types of fisheries – predators and prey, surface species and bottom fish, international and domestic. Check out our interactive map showcasing the global breadth of harvest strategies in place or development. And if you notice that we are missing your fishery, please let us know!

Harvest strategies can incorporate broader ecosystem considerations into fishery management decisions. Essential elements of successful harvest strategies include management objectives that outline a vision for the future of a fishery, which often includes reference points to define sustainability and harvest control rules (HCR) that set fishing opportunities. Critically, these elements can be structured to account for ecosystem considerations. For example, a management objective might call for leaving a certain amount of fish in the water for the species’ predators.

Like EBFM, harvest strategies are a form of “adaptive management”—that is, they promptly respond to ecosystem conditions to promote fishery stability, resilience, and long-term sustainability. To learn more about how ecosystem considerations can be integrated into a harvest strategy, check out this factsheet.

Managing fish stocks in a rapidly changing climate is an ongoing challenge for fishery managers worldwide. Classic fisheries models recognize that production processes are dynamic but do not account for the long-term trends induced by climate change. Harvest strategies can help adaptively manage climate-vulnerable fish stocks by a) testing climate change scenarios (e.g., changes to stock productivity or natural mortality) in MSE to identify “climate-smart” harvest strategies and b) using the inherent adaptiveness and responsiveness of harvest strategies to quickly modify fishing levels in response to fluctuations in abundance as a result of climate change. For more insights on how harvest strategies can address the impacts of climate change, check out our webinar and blog, where experts delve into the intersection of fisheries management and climate resilience.

One of the key strengths of harvest strategies is their use of a continuous feedback loop that integrates scientific research and data into decision-making. This starts with collecting specific monitoring data to assess the status of the fishery in relation to established reference points and management objectives. This data is then fed into an assessment method that evaluates the current state of the fishery, providing essential insights into stock health, fishing pressure, and other factors.

The results of these assessments are used to inform the harvest control rule (HCR), which is the part of the strategy that dictates how management measures should be adjusted based on the current stock status. The HCR determines whether fishing limits need to be increased, reduced, or maintained to meet the strategy’s long-term objectives. After management measures are adjusted, the process begins again, with new data collected to monitor the outcomes and ensure the strategy remains on track. This continuous cycle of monitoring, assessment, and adjustment helps ensure that harvest strategies remain adaptive and effective over time.

Yes, most harvest strategies include review provisions to confirm adequate performance, and all elements of the harvest strategy can be updated if necessary. Adopted harvest strategies are typically re-evaluated every six to ten years. They can be modified if they perform differently than expected or if new knowledge requires a revision of the MSE. Similarly, although MSE and harvest strategies decrease the reliance on traditional stock assessments for informing management actions, benchmark assessments may still be conducted periodically to ensure that the harvest strategy is performing as expected.

In addition to the infrequent reviews, most harvest strategies include “exceptional circumstances protocols” that provide a more regular check for rare and unforeseen conditions the harvest strategy was not designed to handle (e.g., a necessary abundance index is discontinued, and new information about stock productivity). Depending on the significance of an identified exceptional circumstance, it might cause a deviation from the harvest strategy.

1. Funding and time constraints: MSE requires an upfront investment and adequate technical expertise, but it pays off in dividends upon implementation, given the streamlined scientific inputs and pre-agreed management actions.
2. Stakeholder Engagement: Achieving active and inclusive participation from fishers, conservation groups, local communities, and other stakeholders is crucial but challenging. Balancing diverse interests, building consensus, and addressing communication gaps—especially between scientists and managers—can complicate the process.
3. Data Availability and Quality: Reliable data is desirable for creating effective harvest strategies. In many regions, there may be gaps in data collection, issues with data accuracy, or a lack of historical data, which can hinder the development of robust strategies.
4. Adaptation to Environmental Changes: As climate change and other environmental factors alter fish populations and ecosystems, harvest strategies must be adaptable. However, predicting and incorporating these changes into management plans can be complex.
5. Capacity Building: It is essential to build the capacity of local managers, scientists, and stakeholders to understand, implement, and maintain harvest strategies. This requires time, resources, and ongoing support.
6. Compliance and Enforcement: Ensuring that all parties adhere to the agreed-upon harvest strategy can be challenging, particularly in areas with limited resources for monitoring and enforcement.
7. Allocation: Determining how to allocate fishing opportunities or catch limits among different countries, regions, or fishing sectors can be contentious. Disagreements over allocation often stem from historical fishing rights, economic interests, and differing national priorities. Reaching fair and equitable allocation decisions that satisfy all stakeholders can be one of the most challenging aspects of harvest strategy implementation.

Harvest strategies address uncertainty using a process known as Management Strategy Evaluation (MSE). This process tests the effectiveness of different management approaches across a range of possible future scenarios. It involves evaluating how the harvest strategy would perform under various conditions, such as changes in stock productivity, environmental factors, or illegal fishing levels. By testing these different scenarios, scientists and managers can find the harvest strategy that will perform best, that is, best meet the management objectives, regardless of which scenario comes to fruition.

Although management bodies name and define them slightly differently, all harvest strategies include these basic elements: management objectives; a monitoring program; indicators of the fishery’s status and population health, with associated reference points; a method to assess those indicators; and harvest control rules that set fishing opportunities, which could include catch and size limits, depending on the value of key indicators relative to the reference points.

Reference points are benchmarks used to compare the current status of a fishery management system against a desirable (or undesirable) state. When ingrained in the agreed management objectives for a fishery, they can be used to assess progress toward meeting those objectives. Check out our resources reference points to learn about the different types of reference points and considerations when choosing candidate reference points.

Although different management bodies may take different approaches, harvest strategies are all developed using MSE and generally follow this development process:

Check out our animation that explains harvest strategies, including how they are developed to achieve a long-term vision for a stock and the fisheries that target it.

International agreements play a critical role in the adoption of harvest strategies by establishing the legal and regulatory frameworks that encourage or require their use. Key global instruments, such as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement (UNFSA), call for the application of precautionary and ecosystem-based approaches to fisheries management, both of which are supported by the development and implementation of harvest strategies.

The UNFSA and FAO’s Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries emphasize using reference points to trigger management responses—the essence of harvest strategies. Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs) are uniquely positioned to operationalize these international commitments by developing harvest strategies. Many RFMOs have already made progress in advancing these tools to sustainably manage fish stocks.

To explore how far RFMOs have come, check out these examples of adopted harvest strategies: https://harveststrategies.org/case-studies-of-harvest-strategies-in-global-fisheries/rfmo-hs-management-measures/

Many Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs) have created official working groups dedicated to discussions about harvest strategies, simultaneously providing an opportunity for education and capacity building and soliciting input and feedback. In this way, the working groups help to steer the development process. These groups typically meet intersessionally, including scientists, managers, industry stakeholders, and NGO representatives. These science-management dialogue (SMD) groups are an essential part of harvest strategy development, helping to facilitate a conversation focused on laying out objectives, timelines, management strategy evaluation (MSE) workplans, and educational materials that move the process toward adoption.

For more information, check out this journal article on stakeholder participation in MSE and our factsheet and infographic outlining how to put a management procedure together and the role of different stakeholder groups.

Most content on HarvestStrategies.Org is available in English, French, and Spanish. Certain resources may be available in additional languages (e.g., Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Chinese, Thai, German, Portuguese, Italian. If there is a particular language in which you’d like a specific product, please connect with us!

Great news! You’ve come to the right place. At Harvest Strategies.org, we offer a range of resources to help stakeholders understand and actively participate in the development and implementation of harvest strategies. Here are some quick links to get you started:

• Webinars: Explore our collection of webinars where experts dive into the intricacies of harvest strategies and real-world applications. Check out upcoming sessions or watch recordings of past events.
• Case Studies: Learn from real-world examples of how harvest strategies are being used in fisheries around the globe. These case studies highlight successes and lessons learned to provide valuable insights for stakeholders.
• Factsheets: Get concise, easy-to-digest factsheets that provide clear overviews of different aspects of harvest strategies and their benefits for fisheries management.
• Blogs: Stay informed with our blog, where we cover timely topics, insights, and updates on harvest strategies, including expert opinions and recent developments in fisheries management.
• E-Learning (coming soon!): Our soon-to-launch e-learning course will guide you through the fundamentals of harvest strategies, offering interactive modules and expert-led lessons to help you become more informed and engaged.

For all these resources and more, explore HarvestStrategies.org. Keep an eye out for updates on our new e-learning course!