Editorial: Data-limited research in stock assessment to increase the understanding of fisheries resources and inform and improve management efforts

Management thinker Peter Drucker is often quoted as saying “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” Drucker means that you cannot know whether or not you are successful unless success is defined and monitored. Such a quote is fully applicable to fishery science because only when we can estimate the status of stocks can we provide meaningful and successful management advice: that which gets measured gets managed. However, an increasing share of fishers’ income is derived from fish from stocks whose status remains unassessed. In such situations, a simple rough model might be more useful than no model at all.