Seminar: Factoring Uncertainty into Fisheries Management Advice - have Fisheries Scientists got their Act together?

Date:	24/10/2013 - 24/10/2013
Location:	Venue: M304 Mathematics Building
Speaker:	Doug Butterworth
Event Details:	Seminar

The Department of Mathematics & Applied Mathematics

 has the pleasure of inviting you to the seminar talk of

Doug Butterworth

on

Factoring Uncertainty into Fisheries Management Advice – have Fisheries Scientists got their Act together?

(This talk will repeat an invited Keynote address to the recent Annual Science Conference of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea held in Reykjavik, Iceland. ICES is the world’s oldest international marine research organization, and responsible also for providing scientific management advice for many of the fisheries of the North Atlantic.)

Thursday, 24 October 2013 

at 16h00

Venue: M304

Mathematics Building
University Avenue, Upper Campus, UCT

 Refreshments will be served in M331 after the lecture.

Abstract: Worldwide one finds a wide range of approaches for conducting fisheries assessments, and in particular for specifying risk levels for and factoring uncertainty into the associated scientific management advice. While in line with the Precautionary Principle that emanated from the 1992 UNCED in Rio, this process can potentially result in a recommended catch limit for a fish stock that lies anywhere within wide bounds. The two broad approaches to advice provision – the “best assessment” and feedback-based Management Procedure approaches – will be simply explained, with their strengths, weaknesses and future prospects contrasted. Other aspects of current international scientific fisheries management practice will also be discussed. For example, over recent years the practice of peer review of assessments has proliferated, but are these now too frequent, too superficial, and too lacking in continuity and hence consistency in their conduct and recommendations? While the Marine Stewardship Council’s ecolabelling scheme has certainly brought improvements to the conduct and implementation of fisheries assessment and management, is its over-frequent audit/review process absorbing so much of the available expertise in the field as to appreciably subtract from resources needed for research activities? Is the MSC initiative heading towards inconsistency and unsustainability, which will ultimately damage the achievement of its laudable objectives? The issues of approaches to take climate change and multi-species/ecosystem aspects into account will be addressed briefly. The key concern, given the wide and variable nature of current scientific fisheries management advice, is the risk that scientists’ credibility with stake-holders will be lost, as science will be perceived to have failed – what must scientists do to prevent this?

Everybody welcome!

Enquiries: Di Loureiro (di.lapidoloureiro@uct.ac.za); Tel: 021 650 2340