EBFM in a Changing Environment: A Fishing Perspective

Ecosystem-Based Fishery Management (EBFM) is often touted as the newest way to manage our fisheries, but for centuries fishermen have used their understanding of ecosystem connections to make business decisions. The transition from using observations at sea to inform fishing decisions to incorporating those observations into management makes sense. For the fishermen of the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association who have strived to find ways to protect their communities, EBFM represents the potential to manage at a more local level while recognizing the natural ebb and flow of an environment.

EBFM is important to fishermen in Maine as we are trying to run businesses, sustain communities, and rebuild a marine ecosystem that is experiencing warming faster than 99% of the world’s oceans. The impacts of this changing ecosystem are already being felt and have left many managers struggling to understand the repercussions of their decisions.  EBFM offers the opportunity make decisions looking at the whole picture, something single-species management has not allowed. A science-based management system that recognizes the connections within the ecosystem is one that fishermen are ready to embrace.