Seminar Series: Challenges and Opportunities to Enhance Adaptive Capacity of Fisheries Management

There is a growing academic literature focused on enhancing the adaptive capacity of fisheries to environmental change. However, this literature has remained fairly abstract and high-level and has provided limited concrete guidance to on-the-ground fisheries managers and scientists. Our team has explored management implications of academic theories through interviews and surveys with U.S. regional council members and staffers, NMFS regional office staffers, and NMFS science center staff. We use insights from these practitioners to 1) define key adaptive traits for the U.S. fisheries management system going forward, 2) provide guidance for researchers in this field about how to make their work more directly useful to managers, and 3) describe key barriers to adaptation across the U.S. A question-and-answer session will follow the presentation during which members of the public will have the opportunity to participate in the discussion.