Ecosystems and Climate Team Leader, Northwest Fisheries Science Center, NOAA Fisheries
Ecosystem-based management (EBM) is not a new idea, nor, I will argue, is it absolutely necessary for sustainable fisheries. However, fishing, even sustainably, has clear ecosystem and conservation consequences, and it is within this realm of multiple objectives and management mandates that EBM is critical. But, how do we actually do EBM? Now that resource managers and policy makers are embracing (or at least accepting) EBM in concept, there is somewhat limited practical advice on how to implement the tenets of EBM. Despite a reasonable understanding of many of the social and biogeophysical components of marine ecosystems, we lack a framework or process for using science to inform decision making about multiple interacting management objectives. In this talk I will outline an approach to inform resource management decisions. This approach allows us to make incremental progress towards EBM given current management, policy and legal constraints. However, the approach is broadly applicable and will be useful to more comprehensive large-scale EBM in the future.
Phillip Levin is program manager of the Science for Ecosystem-based Management Initiative and leader of the Ecosystems and Climate Team at NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center. His current research focuses on bridging the gaps between behavioral ecology, conservation biology and fisheries science, and developing modeling and statistical approaches to inform ecosystem-based management of marine systems. Previously, Phil's research included the ecology and conservation of temperate marine fishes, as well as studies on mammals, birds, invertebrates, and macroalgae living in coral reefs, estuaries and freshwater rivers and streams.
Phil received his Ph.D. in zoology from the University of New Hampshire in 1993 and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Marine Science (University of North Carolina). Prior to joining NOAA, Phil was an Assistant Professor of Marine Biology at Texas A&M University (1994-96), and an Assistant Research Professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz (1997-99).
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