June 23, 1997

Mangel to advise fisheries service about management of marine ecosystems

By Jennifer McNulty

Professor Marc Mangel of environmental studies has been named to a newly formed panel of specialists who will study how marine ecosystem research and management is conducted. The 20 panelists include academic and government marine scientists as well as representatives of the fishing industry, conservation organizations, and regional fishery management councils. They will assess how ecosystem principles are currently applied to marine fisheries and how those principles might be expanded in the future.

Known as the National Marine Fisheries Service Ecosystem Principles Advisory Panel, the group will first meet in August 1997. The panel will report to the National Marine Fisheries Service through a report to Congress due in October 1998.

The ecosystem approach to fisheries management sees fisheries as part of an interconnected community of living things and the physical environment. Many of the complex interactions in marine ecosystems are poorly understood and will require additional research.

The report to Congress will include an analysis of the extent to which ecosystem principles are currently being applied to fishery research, conservation, and management activities, and proposals that would expand the application of ecosystem principles in fishery conservation and management.

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