Recreational fishing and fisheries management: A HMAP Asia project paper

This paper examines the history of recreational fishing and its influence on the development of fisheries management in Western Australia in the first half of the twentieth century. Based on research completed in 2002, the paper outlines the origins and development of recreational fishing and examines the growing influence of recreational fishing over management policies and practises during this period, an influence that diminished after the Second World War as a consequence of the rise of a new management paradigm based on the science of marine biology. This research is part of a larger project concerned with the historical impact of recreational fishing on the decline and recovery of marine animal populations.