Electronic Frontiers in Fisheries Management - Log Books and Real Time Fishery Information Systems - Case Studies and Issues

Fisheries managers rely on an increasingly interleaved and complex set of data for tracking and understanding fishery performance. Most fundamental is information coming directly from fishers and fishing companies. This symposium will examine this fishery electronic frontier from two venues – electronic logbooks and real time fishery information systems  –  via case studies and discussion of overarching issues.

 This part of the symposium will provide a series of examples of how the ELB data are being used and show how this new technology has been used to improve management and assessment, as well as improve the relationships between shrimp fishers and managers. The ELB technology is both reliable and inexpensive and has potential for application to many other marine fisheries.  The second part of the Symposium initially focuses on case studies and on lessons learned from fisheries using eFIS systems, and then examines technical, legal, management, and financial issues critical to designing successful eFIS systems.

Collectively, the day will consider fairly complex and relatively new electronic data systems. However, irrespective of any particular fishery, the benefits and issues of crossing into the electronic frontier will be aggressively explored.