Abstract

Formal fisheries management is a complex approach with disparate, yet highly interlinked, problems. Many of the management processes have increasingly relied on different scientific disciplines. Disconnects between these disciplines and the resulting disjointed information gathered have, however, been a major barrier to their successful synthesis. Both marine resources and impacted communities have not always benefited from the best of the biological and human dimension data. The resulting unforeseen consequences have degraded both resource sustainability and ecosystem services. The development of FishPath as an improved stock assessment approach will provide an enhanced improvement in sustaining marine ecosystems. Examination of the FishPath approach coupled with a review of existing and proposed human dimension data collections, will provide a nexus need to successfully integrate various fisheries assessments with community analyses. This will lead to better incorporation of information for successful ecosystem management, benefiting both the marine resources and the people who rely on them. This presentation will introduce the needed discussion to begin a dialogue to achieve this goal.