November 16, 2016
ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes (CBO) Founding Director, Leah Gerber, along with members of the Lenfest Fishery Ecosystem Task Force, recently convened and delivered a report that serves as a multifunctional guide for Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management (EBFM) strategies. The report is titled “Building Effective Fishery Ecosystem Plans.”
The mission of this effort is to provide ecosystem-based solutions as the result of collaborations among universities, government agencies, commercial fishermen, and non-profit organizations. These efforts are well aligned with CBO’s mision, which is to enable discoveries and solutions needed to sustain Earth's biodiversity in a time of rapid biophysical, institutional, and cultural change.
The report is designed for an audience with knowledge and interest in fisheries, as well as for managers, council staff, advisors, and other technical professionals. In order to implement an effective EBFM system, the report proposes help in the following three key areas: (1) Provides a current status of fisheries and key principes of the EBFMs to be implemented, (2) Identifies gaps in scientific knowledge, (3) Suggests novel strategies that can be applied to fill these gaps.