How Do We Know When We're Doing EBFM?

There has been no shortage of calls for ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM).  Even if one looks at the titles of the various sessions at this meeting, there is clearly a shift in the broad level consideration and acceptance of the need for and value of EBFM as seen by >33% of them somehow related to this topic.  Yet there remains a dearth of practical, operational guidelines for actually implementing EBFM.  The challenge has been moving from the whats, whys and wheres to the hows on this topic. Here we describe three major classes of EBFM objectives, comprised of nine operational sub-objectives that could be used as draft performance metrics to gauge the progress of implementing EBFM.  We explore each with case studies that have been piloted and applied.  Certainly there are caveats of scale, jurisdiction, mandate clarity, and extent for each of the nine objectives, but we assert that this general approach can serve as a means to further make EBFM an operational reality.  Further, we note that in many jurisdictions, according to these proposed measures, in many ways we are already well underway.