Fisheries Management Plans
The EAF is not seen as a replacement for, but rather an extension of current fisheries management practices that need to be broadened to take account of the biotic, abiotic and human components of ecosystems in which fisheries operate.
In order to ensure that EAF is more successful than conventional management has been over the past 50 years, a number of major changes are required to both improve conventional management and implement EAF. A key change is the need to set better operational objectives and clarify their relation with management structures, process and measures.
It will also be necessary to recognize the broader economic and social interests of stakeholders under EAF while at the same time the setting of economic and social objectives will need a broader consideration of ecological values and constraints than is currently the case.
This Work Package seeks to:
- identify the broad issues associated with the fisheries in each ecosystem area;
- set the intended outcomes of the fisheries management plans in a set of broad objectives for the fisheries in each ecosystem area;
- translate the broad objectives into operational objectives, with direct and practical meaning and against which performance of the fisheries can be evaluated;
- agree on indicators, reference points and performance measures that will ultimately include ecological, social and economic operational objectives;
- formulate a set of rules that achieve each operational objective;
- monitor, assess and review the management plan for each ecosystem area.
The Work Package is led by Jeremy Gault with Mike Fitzpatrick, both of CMRC