Science and Its Role in the National Marine Fisheries Service (2002) / Chapter Skim
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Executive Summary
Executive Summary
Pages 1-8
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The centerpiece of fisheries legislation is the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSFCMA) , an act that had its origins in 1976 when the United States extended federal management to fisheries within the Fisheries Conservation Zone (now named the Exclusive Economic Zone or EEZ)
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On one hand, these laws emphasize the importance to the nation in using these important renewable resources; on the other hand, the laws emphasize the importance of rebuilding depleted stocks and protecting threatened and endangered marine animals. Not surprisingly, NMFS regulations are contentious, given the complexity of managing marine fisheries today.
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The statement of task specified that the committee, in making its assessment, should rely largely on previous NRC reports that examined NMFS's stock assessment models, data-collection methods, and other aspects ofthe NMFS science program and the actions taken by NMFS in response to the reports. Therefore, the committee was drawn from experts who had served on one or more previous NRC studies of NMFS and marine fisheries issues.
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Despite the future promise of multispecies models and models that include ecosystem considerations, such models have not yet attained a level of reliability sufficient for accurate stock assessment predictions. Until multispecies models can be applied reliably, this committee supports the recommendation from previous NRC reports that NMFS rely on singlespecies models with risk-averse and precautionary constraints, consistent with the mandates in the MSFCMA.
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Even though the agency employs some of the world's best fisheries scientists, they are not infallible, and their mistakes can have grave impact on fisheries and fishing communities. Hence, independent review should be a fundamental component of developing stock assessments.
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The report Recruiting Fishery Scientists provided ideas for building this workforce and we reiterate the message contained in that report; NMFS must begin now to meet these needs or it will not have trained people to manage marine fisheries in the future. Five areas of science, identified in previous NRC reports, should receive increased emphasis.
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The report Improving Fish Stock Assessments emphasized the importance of fishery-independent surveys to provide estimates of abundance that could be used to refine stock-assessment models. Without these fishery-independent estimates, model predictions can be severely biased and unreliable.
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Many previous NRC reports have considered economic and social aspects of marine fisheries and made recommendations for NMFS to increase the collection of these data, and hire scientists with this expertise so that socio-economic analyses can be completed as part of the fisheries management planning process. This committee recommends that NMFS fully implement its plan to hire social scientists and economists.
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