Abstract

Limitations in data quantity and quality affect whether and how strategies for fisheries management are implemented. Challenges in integrating resource monitoring, stock assessment evaluations, and identifying robust management practices for data-limited fisheries have been the subject of two previous special workshops at the annual GCFI conference, culminat-ing in a final workshop during the 2015 Panama City conference. Emerging from this final workshop are examples of the use of simulated management strategy evaluation (MSE) for guiding data-limited management practices. MSE involves comparing trade-offs among achievement of management objectives for different combinations of data collection schemes, and varying levels of scientific analysis and decision protocols. In the final workshop, participants focused extensively on the use of simulation in identifying management strategies that resulted in the best chance of achieving fishery objectives, even where data limitations abound.

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