8. Glossary and Extra Information

Matt--could we make this into it's own page on the website?

Acronyms

CCAMLR: Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources
EBFM: Ecosystem-based Fishery Management
EEZ: Exclusive Economic Zone
FAO: Food and Agriculture Organization
FLO: Fairtrade Labelling Organizations
GPS: Global Positioning System
ICES: International Council for the Exploration of the Seas
ITQ: Individual Transferable Quotas
IUU: Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated
IWC: International Whaling Commission
LOS: Law of the Sea
MPA: Marine Protected Area
MSY: Maximum Sustainable Yield
NEAFC: North East Fisheries Commission
NMFS: National Marine Fisheries Service
NGO: Non-governmental organization
NOAA: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Organization
PIT: Passive Integrated Transponder
RFB: Regional Fishery Body
TAC: Total Allowable Catch
UN: United Nations
VMS: Vessel Monitoring System
WCD: World Commission on Dams
WTO: World Trade Organization
WWF: World Wildlife Fund

Terms and Definitions

Biota: all of the plant and animal life in a particular region that occupy a given niche. 

Exclusive Economic Zone: from the Law of the Sea, Part V, Article 55, the exclusive economic zone is "an area beyond and adjacent to the territorial sea, subject to the specific legal regime established in this Part, under which the rights and jurisdiction of the coastal State and the rights and freedoms of other States are governed by the relevant provisions of this Convention."

Fish: Many organisms are taken from the oceans, so for convenience we adopted Magnuson-Stevens Act definition (found in Section 3) as including finfish, crustaceans, mollusks, and marine animals but excluding plant life, mammals, and birds.

Fish stock: population of a species separate from other populations (FAO Fisheries Glossary); a manageable unit.

Flora and fauna: Latin for plants and animals, respectively. 

Healthy Ecosystem: A healthy ecosystem is characterized by optimal biodiversity, populations at carrying capacity, an age distribution as close to normal as possible, natural predator-prey balance, robustness to change, recovery of crashed populations, and minimal negative anthropogenic changes in all of these criteria.

Marine Protected Area:  Any region of the ocean conferred any level of protection.

Marine Reserve:  See "no-take zones" 

No-take zones: designated areas of the ocean where all extractive and/or exploitative uses are indefinitely prohibited.

Sustainable: Fishing healthy ecosystems at a level and in a manner that it is reasonably believed can be continued indefinitely, assuming proper responses to ecosystem changes.

Territorial sea: from the Law of the Sea, Part II, Section 2, the territorial sea is "a limit not exceeding 12 nautical miles, measured from baselines determined in accordance with this Convention" for the definition of baseline as "the low-water line along the coast as marked on large-scale charts officially recognized by the coastal State."