"The main objective of the guidelines is to assist countries, institutions and policy-makers in the development and implementation of a strategy to ensure the sustainability of the aquaculture sector, integration of aquaculture with other sectors and its contribution to social and economic development. "An ecosystem approach to aquaculture is a strategy for the integration of the activity within the wider ecosystem such that it promotes sustainable development, equity and resilience of interlinked social-ecological systems." Being a strategy, the ecosystem approach to aquaculture (EAA) is not what is done, but rather how it is done. The participation of stakeholders is at the base of the strategy. The EAA requires an appropriate policy framework under which the strategy develops through several steps: (i) the scoping and definition of ecosystem boundaries and stakeholder identification; (ii) identification of the main issues; (iii) prioritization of the issues; (iv) definition of operational objectives; (v) elaboration of an implementation plan; (vi) the corresponding implementation process, which includes reinforcing, monitoring and evaluation; and (vii) a long-term policy review. All these are steps informed by the best available knowledge."--Page 4 of cover.