Partnerships for a Common Purpose: Cooperative Fisheries Research and Management

Session 3B: Opportunities-Linking Cooperative Research and Management Integration, Panel Summary

Jim D. Murray

doi: https://doi.org/10.47886/9781888569858.ch36

Feedback needs to go to the managers and to the researchers so that we can redirect research or change the research that we are working on… Cooperative research has a place in every feedback loop. Should eventually be able to drop the word cooperative and it will become implicit in the world of research because it has been fully integrated. [Bonnie Ponwith, acting director, Office of Science and Technology, NOAA Fisheries]

The final session of the joint Sea Grant/American Fisheries Society symposium focused on the integration of cooperative fisheries research and management. Jim Murray, director of outreach with the National Sea Grant Office, moderated the panel and noted that a lot of progress has been made in the past 20 years in the fields of cooperative research and management. The councils are examples of cooperative management, but 20 years ago, the council process did not work very well. In the past, the participation process was largely ritualistic—the council developed fisheries management plans (FMPs), there was a law requiring public hearings, fishermen came to public meetings and they would angrily vent, council members would speed the meeting ahead, and the council would move forward with very little change to the whole FMP as a result of the whole process. This process has changed. The takehome point is that change is often incremental in society and government, but progress is being made.

Below are some speaker highlights, followed by a summary of the facilitated panel-audience discussion. White papers prepared by panelists follow this panel summary.