While the word globalization has been extensively used in recent times, the processes of exchanging information, goods, and culture between people and nations have been occurring since the dawn of human existence. Globalization, as defined by Held and McGrew refers to “the expanding scale, growing magnitude, speeding up and deepening impact of interregional flows and patterns of social interaction … [as well as] to a shift or transformation in the scale of human social organization that links regions and continents.” What is novel about globalization today is the accelerating rate at which these exchanges are occurring. All segments of society and all societies are experiencing the impacts of globalization with the effects being viewed either as positive or negative depending on the value systems used to evaluate them.

The world's fisheries resources and fisheries-dependent communities have long been impacted by globalization. There is, however, a significant deficit in analyzing and understanding the influences of globalization acting on these systems. These analyses would allow for insightful policy reform needed to ensure the sustainability of these coupled human and natural resources systems. Our lack of such knowledge and policy integration have been clearly demonstrated by the collapse of a number of socially and economically important fisheries over the past several decades. This deficit in our understanding, however, is beginning to change as fisheries policy-makers and managers are realizing that globalization is impacting fisheries in numerous ways at all levels of governance, and in view of this are taking action toward understanding and ameliorating the impacts of globalization on these resources.