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Although inland and marine environments, their fisheries, fishery managers, and the realm-specific management approaches are often different, there are a surprising number of similarities that frequently go unrecognized. We contend that there is much to be gained by greater cross-fertilization and exchange of ideas and strategies between realms and the people who manage them. The purpose of this paper is to provide examples of the potential or demonstrated benefits of working across aquatic boundaries for enhanced sustainable management of the world's fisheries resources. Examples include the need to (1) engage in habitat management and protection as the foundation for fisheries, (2) rethink institutional arrangements and management for open-access fisheries systems, (3) establish 'reference points' and harvest control rules, (4) engage in integrated management approaches, (5) reap conservation benefits from the link to fish as food, and (6) reframe conservation and management of fish to better engage the public and industry. Cross-fertilization and knowledge transfer between realms could be realized using environment-independent curricula and symposia, joint scientific advisory councils for management, integrated development projects, and cross-realm policy dialogue. Given the interdependence of marine and inland fisheries, promoting discussion between the realms has the potential to promote meaningful advances in managing global fisheries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No net loss of productive capacity (PC) of fish habitat has been the central concept guiding Canadian fish habitat management policy since 1986. The purpose of this paper is to describe the concept of PC, to review the history and application of the fish habitat management policy in Canada, and to provide a critical review of the range of potential approaches to estimating PC. The approaches were grouped by their central focus: habitat, individual, population, and community-ecosystem. A set of case studies is used to illustrate the use of some approaches drawn from freshwater and marine contexts. Ten components to assessing no net loss of PC were developed and used in the review of approaches for evaluating potential limitations. The review also highlighted the likely future direction of method development, with increasing emphasis on dynamic models integrating population responses to habitat supply characteristics. More work needs to be done to turn research-based metrics of PC into practical operational management assessment tools and to better quantify the link between habitat structure and function and fisheries productivity. The evolving approaches to measure PC reinforce the ties that fish habitat management has to the emerging practices in ecosystem-based management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]