Panel Discussion -- Best Practices & Pitfalls for Ecosystem Management of Fishery Resources

Federal mandates have been established in US law that demand consideration of ecosystem effects (reauthorized Magnuson-Stevens Act, National Environmental Protection Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act, Endangered Species Act) when making fishery management decisions.  Likewise, coastal states, interstate fishery commissions, and fishery management councils also recognize ecosystem concerns in their shared goal of long-term sustainability of their fisheries and many now explicitly consider ecosystem concerns.

However, what information to include in management decisions and how to include it is far from clear in existing mandates, and practices for taking an ecosystem approach to management vary widely around the US.  In a round-table format during the last two speaker slots for the day, managers and modelers from today's symposium discuss what approaches to ecosystem management of fishery resources have worked (or, have not) in different regions of the US and abroad.