Themes

The Symposium will deal with two major themes. The first theme will provide an overview of the vast range of indicators of exploitation and state of ecosystems that are being developed for fisheries management from an ecosystem perspective. The second theme will cover the scientific basis for integrating indicators into an effective EAF. This comprises the evaluation of indicators, the definition of operational frameworks and the communication to stakeholders of inferences based on indicators.

1. Indicators for an Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries

The session will illustrate how the indicators synthesize the structure and the functioning of ecosystems in time and space, as well as how the indicators are affected by fisheries. It will consider how the indicators have been or should be applied to different types of ecosystems or fisheries exploitation, and will cover the following topics:

Environmental indicators that quantify climate change or environmental variability and their ecosystem effects, (e.g. regime shifts) as well as the quantification of habitat modification induced by fisheries;

Ecological indicators that characterize the functioning and the dynamics of exploited marine ecosystems on a species basis, a size basis or a trophodynamic basis; Fisheries indicators that quantify the impact of fishing activities on exploited and unexploited components of the ecosystems.

2. Evaluating, Implementing, Communicating and Using Indicators

Quantitative indicators of ecosystem status have many uses, and ecosystems have many properties that are critical to conservation and management. For these reasons, a large number of indicators are already available, despite our short experience with fishery indicators. Indicators need to be evaluated according to objective requirements by defining appropriate criteria. Expected oral and poster contributions will present methodologies for evaluating and comparing various indicators, as well as methods for elaborating and constructing data sets that will make it easier to evaluate indicators.

Assembling selected indicators into frameworks within which they can be aggregated and combined is required for implementing an operational EAF. Institutional frameworks may include indicators of the exploitation and state of ecosystems, as well as indicators relating to social and economic aspects. Some presentations will show how such frameworks can facilitate the development and implementation of indicators. Studies of trade-offs between frameworks that tend to make incremental improvements to conventional methods versus the more difficult design and implementation of completely new approaches for aggregating indicators are encouraged.

Communicating indicators is an important aspect of their usefulness, and means for communication to stakeholders will be addressed. Expected contributions will review how indicators can be communicated efficiently in practical situations, for purposes including decision making, and how ecosystem indicators are (or may be) used and communicated.