Strategic Approach for Improved Fish Habitat Management and Conservation

Healthy and productive habitats are vital component of sustainable fisheries.  Many important steps have been taken in the 16 years since the Magnuson Stevens Act was amended to include a clear mandate for the identification and conservation of essential fish habitat.  These include: 1) Life-stage specific Essential Fish Habitat (EFH) has been identified for most fish stocks and that has given NOAA a vehicle to provide input on habitat impacting federal actions; 2) Fishery Management Councils have incorporated EFH into their management plans; and 3) a limited number of areas in the ocean have been designated for the explicit purpose of protection of habitat.  

However, the full potential for habitat conservation as an important tool for Fishery Management Councils to use to achieve fisheries management outcomes is yet to be realized.  Reflecting the ecological needs of fish, EFH designations cover most of the marine environment. However, it is neither practical nor necessary to provide uniform protection for all EFH. In this presentation, I will describe a long term outcome-focused approach that we use to guide our conservation investments at NFWF that can be applied as a logical framework, with interim results and targets, to focus habitat conservation work under the Magnuson Act.