Research and Development

NOAA is committed, under its Healthy Oceans Goal, to two objectives directly related to protected species science and management: “improved understanding of ecosystems to inform resource management decisions” and “recovered and healthy marine and coastal species.” Evidence of progress toward these objectives over the next five years will include:

• “Next-generation fish and protected resource stock assessments incorporating habitat, ecosystem, and climate information;”
• “Living marine resource managers using high-quality data to inform management plans and decisions;”
• “Stabilized or increased abundance of species that are depleted, threatened, or endangered;”
• “Decreased bycatch of protected species;” and
• “Increased number of protected species with improving status.”

 

These responsibilities fall under NOAA Fisheries jurisdiction, and meeting such objectives will require assessments of current and projected future status. Achieving these milestones will require better integration of habitat and ecosystem characteristics, anthropogenic threats, and environmental factors. As NOAA Fisheries moves more toward an ecosystem-based framework, long-term,  multi-disciplinary data collection is essential for next generation assessments. Additionally, these assessments for many species will require national and international collaboration on data collection and species management.

 

• NOAA Fisheries Marine Mammal and Sea Turtle Stock Assessment Improvement Plan
• NOAA's Next Generation Strategic Plan
• NOAA's Annual Guidance Memo
• COMING SOON: NOAA Fisheries Office of Science and Technology's Science Strategic and Implementation Plan and Individual Science Center Plans