Symposium Summary: Communication and Engagement in Fisheries Management: Working with Stakeholders to Achieve Sustainable Fisheries and Healthy Ecosystems

Science communication, in the form of outreach and engagement, is a frequently suggested approach for achieving fisheries conservation and human well-being goals. Communication is a dynamic process of sending, receiving, interpreting, and clarifying, and can support a variety of outcomes. This symposium emphasized the importance of goal setting and evaluation planning for communication initiatives that span outreach to engagement. Once communication goals are established, a variety of mediums—film, short digital video, social media, webinars, community workshops, and others—can be used alone or in combination to support achieving fisheries conservation and human well-being. Our presenters provided examples of four different science communication models: outreach based on science to fill the knowledge gap (deficit model); outreach based on science, yet tailored to address local informational needs and social systems (contextual model); outreach based on local (or lay) knowledge as necessary to decision-making as technical scientific knowledge (lay expertise model); and engagement-based activities to enhance public participation and trust in science, management, and policy (public participation model). Our session concluded with an innovative example of graduate student training in outreach and engagement, as well as a comprehensive summary of evaluation approaches to determine the efficacy of communication efforts.   — Heather Triezenberg, Michigan Sea Grant/Michigan State University Extension, [email protected];  and Erin L. Jarvie, Fisheries and Wildlife, Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability, Michigan State University, [email protected] Read the symposium abstracts here.