Fishery Information Networks - Integrating Social Science

Collection of economic information on fishery products has always been difficult. But as economics and other social sciences become more integrated into ‘ecosystem-based’ management we need to view fish from a dollar and social value perspective along with the biological perspective.  Doing so is fairly well understood theoretically, but comprehensive data collection systems seldom exist.   New  real-time or near real-time systems can track an individual fish (or bundle of fish) all the way to the consumer. And regions, states and localities are becoming interested in the social value and cultural and historic context of fishing operations. Thus, to track fishery products beyond a simple count or weight of fish, we need  to change our information paradigm from a ‘fish ticket’ perspective to an ecosystem-based management perspective.  This requires a view of the past, a view of the present, and a vision for the future.  We also need to know what kind of information is needed, how all the data can be integrated and how the information is to be accessed by which users or interest groups.