Click on the names of key note speakers and conveners for more information.
Session 1: Introductory session
This session does not accept contributions apart from the appointed key notes
Welcome
The journey to set targets and limits in fisheries management
Key note: Pamela Mace (New Zealand Ministry for Primary Industries)
Linking targets and limits to practical management
Key note: Poul Degnbol
Session 2: Science and management in a societal setting
Conveners: Barrie Deas (National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations), Anna Rindorf (DTU-Aqua)
Session contents
This session concentrates on how science is brought to reflect societal priorities, how management is brought to reflect scientific advice in practice and how adaptive management can be implemented in slowly reacting legislative systems. This session initiates the scientific sessions to ensure that application in practice is brought into focus before hearing the scientific presentations as society and implementation is a top priority of the work presented. The session is subdivided into 3 smaller interactive sessions, each of which is initiated with short talks to spark discussion. These short talks are meant to spark discussion and are elevator talks or pecha-kucha talks rather than longer scientific talks. Each session has an appointed facilitator and rapporteur which together will write a synthesis based on all presentations in their subsession and the subsequent discussion. The sessions will end with group summaries presented in plenary and a panel discussion of the facilitators in each group.
We welcome contributions on
- Getting science to reflect societal priorities
- Getting management to reflect scientific advice in practice
- Adaptive management in slowly reacting systems
Note that the format of contributions to this session differs from that of the other sessions and that the subsequent publication format is also different.
Session 3: Identifying trade-offs and conflicting objectives
Conveners: Marta Coll (IRD), Phil Levin (USA)
Key note: Eva Plaganyi (CSIRO)
Session contents
This session will focus on case studies as examples of the application of tools to identify trade-offs between ecological, economic and social objectives in various fisheries around the world. These are envisaged to span case studies on selection of indicators to quantify trade-offs in specific ecosystems, as well as model simulations to explore and evaluate trade-off situations in selected case study ecosystems or fisheries. The aim is to provide concrete examples of how trade-offs are identified and explored, with the aim of providing sound scientific advice that can be incorporated into the decision making process (session 4 below). We encourage cross-disciplinary studies.
We welcome contributions on
- Selecting indicators for ecosystem, economic and social objectives for use in practical management
- The conflict between different ecosystem or economic objectives
- The conflict between different social objectives and different user groups (e.g. the conflict between stability and average yield)
Session 4: Incorporating knowledge on trade-offs and conflicting objectives into decision making
Convener: Cathy Dichmont (CSIRO) and Niels Hintzen (IMARES)
Key note: André Punt (University of Washington)
Session contents
This session will focus on approaches to incorporating scientific advice on trade-offs and conflicting objectives into decision-making. Of importance are implemented examples that can be applied by other fisheries as well as techniques used to convey complex information from scientists to managers and other stakeholders. As a result, both successes and failures are equally important. Furthermore, case studies that articulate how scientifically based decision-making has been supported while still articulating uncertainty, trade-offs and conflicts. Those that place these conflicting objectives into broad contexts (whether over species and ecosystem, or across the whole socio-ecological system) would be most welcomed.
We welcome contributions on
- Examples of illustration methods to inform on trade offs
- Methods to derive decisions on trade-offs and examples of their use
- Experience from inclusion of trade-offs in decision making processes
Session 5: Targets and limits in a variable world
Convener: Jim Thorson (NOAA), Olivier Thebaud (Ifremer)
Key note: CoIlin Minto (GMIT, Ireland)
Session contents
Making tactical and strategic decisions based using predictions of conceptual and mathematical models of increasing complexity generally requires that processes either remain constant over time or develop in a predictable way. However, there is increasing evidence that populations, ecosystems, and human systems change over time and not always in the way we expect. Methods for detecting variation over time in individual processes (e.g., expected recruitment during different ecosystem regimes, or changes in fisher behavior after management changes) are developing rapidly, but covariation among processes and synchrony in changes among different ecosystem components are important topics of further research. There are also many unresolved questions regarding which processes can be predicted accurately at different time scales, and what level of predictive precision is necessary when informing management. Perhaps more importantly, there is relatively little synthesis regarding how changes in human behavior arise from and impact upon fisheries management actions and changes in biological processes.
We welcome contributions on
- The effect of variability in population, community, and ecosystem-level processes on output (targets and limits for total catch) and input (gear regulations) controls for fisheries management
- Case studies regarding the detection of time-variation, whether rapid (regime-shift) or ongoing (temperature, plankton, and eutrophication). which preferably illustrate new methods for detecting past changes and predicting future changes
- The causes and consequences of human variability (changes in fisher behaviors, economic incentives, governance structure, exogenous economic drivers, and fleet structure) on fisheries management
Session 6: Practical implementation of targets and limits: institutional frameworks which deliver
Convener: Petter Holm (Norway), Ernesto Penas-Lado (EC)
Key note: Tony Charles (Saint Mary's University Halifax)
Session contents
This session invites case studies on the institutional challenges encountered in practical implementation of targets and limits on different scales and using management measures under different conditions. Descriptions of cases where adaptive management has been implemented in practice and the consequences in terms of process and outcome are also welcomed as well as studies of the implementation at a range of different scales from local fisheries to large marine regions. Further, studies of the effect on societal settings on the decision and implementation of targets and limits by management institutions are encouraged. The session complements session 2 by allowing longer presentations on specific topics related to practical implementation of targets and limits in institutional frameworks.
We welcome contributions on
- Institutional frameworks for implementation of targets and limits on different scales
- Evaluation of how various management measures contribute to implementation of targets and limits under different conditions
- Adaptive management in practice
- The effect of economic variability and variability in social conditions on how management institutions decide and implement targets and limits
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