Fisheries management planning and support for strategic and tactical decisions in an ecosystem approach context

Biodiversity Knowledge and its Application in the Gulf of Maine Area

“…Modern means of harvesting as well as expanding human development along shorelines can be signifi cantly disruptive or destructive of habitat, and virtually all areas of the Gulf from the intertidal to deep basins have been affected to some extent by human activities. Over the past three decades such impacts have generated growing concern, and a long series of restrictions on participation, gear, season and areas fi shed have been implemented, with historical emphasis on " catch " management and an emerging consideration of habitats, species of special concern, and biodiversity (Auster & Shackell 2000 ;Murawski et al 2000 ;Lindholm et al 2004 ;Buzeta & Singh 2008 ;Gavaris 2009 ).…”

“…To ensure development of a realistic and useful concept of how biodiversity knowledge can be used in public policy and management, GoMA has worked with other groups and projects that emphasized stakeholder involvement, planning and implementation. These included US and Canadian fi sheries agencies, which are working on implementing ecosystem approaches to fi sheries management (Ecosystem Assessment Program 2009 ;Gavaris 2009 ) In the search for ways to capture the complexity of biodiversity organization within an ecoregion, and in relation to the development of indicators and monitoring programs to assess status and trends of regional biodiversity, various hierarchical frameworks have been proposed. One approach stems from an adaptation of earlier conceptual frameworks on ecosystem structure and function put forward by Noss (1990) and articulated around then -available techniques for monitoring terrestrial biodiversity.…”

Rebuilding of depleted fish stocks through an ecosystem approach to fisheries

“…Finally, the tactic to implement the strategy may be a catch quota. Gavaris (2009) extended this traditional fishery management example to embrace ecosystem objectives addressing productivity, biodiversity and habitat and offered example strategies with associated pressures and tactics. The advocated procedure requires identification of key pressures influenced by human activities and managing their impacts on ecosystem attributes.…”

Disentangling Habitat Concepts for Demersal Marine Fish Management

“…There has also been an increasing emphasis on the application of ecosystembased fisheries management (EBFM) (Box 1), in addition to species-by-species assessment and fisheries management (Schmitten 1999, Sinclair et al 2002, Gavaris 2009). …”