Fisheries indicators: Development and evaluation of indicators to monitor fisheries sustainability at the community level

Sustainable development in marine capture fisheries has been the subject of considerable research over the past fifty years. Despite this attention to research, most fisheries around the world are approaching or have reached an unsustainable rate of harvest. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations is encouraging fisheries managers around the world to monitor fisheries sustainability using indicators of sustainable development. Nations and local fishing communities, alike, are encouraged to take part in fisheries monitoring initiatives. The purpose of this thesis is to explore how sustainable development indicators of marine capture fisheries can contribute to monitoring the sustainability of local fishing communities.; This research was conducted in two phases. The first phase explored the process of sustainable develop, merit indicator design. A case-study of the fishing community within Glace Bay, Nova Scotia was used to evaluate the ways in which indicators can contribute to monitoring sustainable fisheries development in local fishing communities. Each indicator in the subset from the design phase was evaluated against situation-specific criteria for determining indicator quality. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...