UW Aquatic & Fishery Sciences Quantitative Seminar

Mark Dickey-Collas, Ecosystem Approach Coordinator

International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ISEC)

Working at the ecosystem based management coal face...the challenges for knowledge brokers.

Abstract

As we move towards greater application of ecosystem based management and attempt to reconcile various competing policy objectives for the management of marine activities, the ever present need to improve the knowledge base comes to the fore. In fisheries management, we have relatively clear pressure to state relationships; as we alter fishing effort, generally the populations respond. When providing the knowledge base to consider a portfolio of management objectives, we enter the realm of defining safe operating space. The lack of clear pressure-state relationships challenges our concepts of management targets for the state of the ecosystem, and the likely impact of cumulative effects from a multitude of pressures on the state further challenges how we advise influencers and decision makers. Quantitative and qualitative knowledge of different veracities are brought to the table, and knowledge brokers need methods that can combine this information maintaining credibility and legitimacy. In this talk, I explore these issues and suggest that despite this bewildering set of challenges, the science community remaining pragmatic, is chipping away at the coal face and making progress.