NOAA’S Ecosystem Approach to Management

Abstract

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Ecosystem Approaches to Management (EAM) is a holistic, evolutionary management strategy designed to improve the productivity of coastal and marine ecosystems. NOAA has developed a vision for an ecosystem approach to management, and detailed its mission and outcomes for sustainable use of the nation's coastal and marine resources. This vision incorporates collaboration among NOAA, other federal, state, tribal, and local agencies, NGOs, academic and business communities. An ecosystem approach to management shifts current management practices from sectoral, short-term perspective s, with humans independent of ecosystems to ecosystem-based, long-term perspectives and humans integral to ecosystems. The management practices will be geographically specific, located in 10 recently delineated US regional ecosystems based on the Large Marine Ecosystem model. NOAA will work further to delineate sub-ecoregions, and address inland boundary issues based on coastal watersheds and diadromous fish habitat, as well as other boundary issues. NOAA has defined five EAM strategies: adaptive, incremental, geographically specifying management areas, accounts for ecosystem knowledge and uncertainties, and balances diverse societal objectives. In order to understand health and socioeconomic status and trends of these delineated ecosystems, the agency is developing a suite of of national level of ecosystem indicators. Over time, NOAA plans to expand the indicator suite to have a regional and sub-regional set for each ecosystem. NOAA's future steps towards EAM include improving internal integration and coordination to produce better products and services, while collaborating with partners to begin the regional process of ecosystem-based management.

Marine Mammals and Fishery Sustainability

“…Against the backdrop of pinniped interactions with listed fish and fishermen, NOAA has moved resource management to a broader strategy designed to improve the health and productivity of coastal and marine ecosystems. Known as "ecosystem-based management," NOAA has adopted this approach based on the fundamental understanding that an ecosystem is "a geographically specified system of organisms (including humans), their environment, and the processes that control their dynamics" (Burgess et al 2005). Because humans are also a player in NOAA's vision, it is important that the human dimension be factored into resource management decisions.…”

Linking Water Quality and Fishery Management Facilitated the Development of Ecosystem‐based Management in the Great Lakes Basin

“…Managers in the Great Lakes basin were arguably at the forefront of EBM development (Slocombe ); EBM was later adopted by other management agencies in both countries (e.g., National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [USA], Fisheries and Oceans Canada; Burgess et al. ; O'Boyle and Jamieson ).…”

Fisheries Volume 44 Number 6 June 2019

“…The adoption of this innovative socialecological perspective demonstrated that scientists, managers, and policymakers viewed the Great Lakes as an integrated system, which needed to be sustainably managed for ecological and human health. Managers in the Great Lakes basin were arguably at the forefront of EBM development (Slocombe 1998 ); EBM was later adopted by other management agencies in both countries (e.g., National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [USA], Fisheries and Oceans Canada; Burgess et al 2005 ;O ' Boyle and Jamieson 2006 ).…”