Project Description

There are legislative requirements for using the best scientific information available when making management decisions and setting management policy. The National Research Council verified and validated the importance of this principle but left undefined precisely what such information is. The principles and tenets of management help define the kind of information that best works for management. This project has the objective of drawing upon the basic elements of these principles to define the kinds of scientific information best suited for management. It is an interdisciplinary effort, involving several specialists.

Issues & Justification

Governments world-wide are faced with managing so as to take into account the complex set of factors involved in ecosystems, the biosphere, and multi-species complexes in our use of resources. Ecosystem-based management is and has been the goal of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries) as a step toward accounting for such complexity. One of the primary issues facing managers is the choice of information to be used in setting policy and proceeding with management action. The issue has been defined as critical to management and has received intense scrutiny in a variety of forums, including a special panel established by the National Research Council at the request of the National Marine Fisheries Service (report issued in late 2004).

Goals

• To define the best form of scientific information to be used in setting policy and goals, thereby enabling managers not only to meet the legislative demands of management but also to adhere to the more general principles of management and science.
• To publish the results of our findings in the peer reviewed literature.

Methods

The principles of both management and science that have been developed in the last three decades will be used to evaluate the various kinds of information that science produces. With a list of the kinds of information science produces in hand, criteria based on the principles of management will be used to evaluate each. By process of elimination, the best form of information will be defined; it will be the kind of information that can be shown to allow managers to adhere to the tenets and principles of both science and management. This work will involve a team that will occasionally meet (usually in pairs) and exchange (often by correspondence) draft material for reports to be generated as final products.