„Rationale Fischerei“?

Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) is a central concept in fisheries management. It is used in calculations to define how much fish can be taken from a stock without threatening its reproductive capacity. Although several scientists criticized the concept to be inadequate as early as it had been implemented in regional and global fisheries policies and despite the fact that it did not prevent overfishing in numerous cases, it was codified in international law and is still an instrument in fisheries management today. This paper argues that - besides path dependencies and a lack of alternatives - MSY was successful because of its compatibility with economic short-term benefits on the one hand and with resource conservation in the long term on the other hand. Thus analyzing the handling of MSY during the past decades highlights both discrepancies and interrelationships between economy and ecology.