Engaging Recreational Fishing Stakeholder Groups to Enhance Outreach Capabilities for the Marine Recreational Information Program (MRIP)

The 2006 National Research Council review of NOAA Fisheries’ recreational data collection programs highlighted the need for improved stakeholder outreach and education in order to build trust and understanding of the program and the data. A series of focus groups and targeted meetings in 2012 allowed us to explore and refine the content and the format of our messaging – revealing three key factors needing to be addressed. First, we found that before we could share details of the Marine Recreational Information Program (MRIP), we needed to lay solid groundwork on where MRIP fits in the overall fisheries management process. Second, stakeholders wanted detailed information about how the data collection programs worked, necessitating development of messaging that made complex information easily accessible without oversimplifying to the point that stakeholders found it condescending. Finally, we found that we needed to package our messages in a format that could be used at in person meetings and for interested stakeholders to further explore on their own. From these original focus groups, we have been able to enhance our stakeholder outreach, providing high quality products still in use. We will provide examples of our successes and lessons learned from this research.