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World Wildlife Fund

Alaska Marine Conservation Council

Roundtable Discussion on Climate Change and Fisheries Management

in the Bering Sea

June 27, 2006

**Meeting Notes**

Facilitated by: Brock Bernstein, National Fisheries Conservation Center

Participants:

Gordon Kruse, University of Alaska

Jeff Short, NMFS

Henry Huntington

Margaret Williams, WWF

Samantha Smith, WWF

Eric Siy, AMCC

Peggy Murphy, AMCC

Dorothy Childers, AMCC

Jim Ayers, Oceana

White Sheard, Pacific Environment

Lauren Kreuger, AMCC intern

Kaitlin Steigermeister, AMCC intern

Francis Weise, NPRB

Lilian Alessa, University of Alaska

Randy Hagenstein, TNC-Alaska

Nancy Soriede, PMEL

AMCC- Alaska Marine Conservation Council

NMFS -- National Marine Fisheries Service

NPRB- North Pacific Research Board

PMEL- Pacific Marine Environmental Lab of the National Oceanic
Atmospheric Administration

TNC-The Nature Conservancy

WWF- World Wildlife Fund

The purpose of the meeting was to discuss ways to improve effectiveness
of habitat protection and fisheries conservation in a manner that is
responsive to climate change. Conservation NGOs are looking for
perspective and advice from scientists about 1) how to consider
ecological changes in the ocean in a management context, and 2) how
cooperative research can best contribute to scientific efforts to
improve predictive capacity about what changes to expect.

Science presentations were made by:

-   Gordon Kruse

-   Jim Overland

-   Jeff Short

Project descriptions:

-   Brock Bernstein

-   Henry Huntington/Gordon Kruse

-   Margaret Williams/Samantha Smith

-   Eric Siy/Peggy Murphy/Dorothy Childers

**Discussion:**

The group considered whether or not available science is robust enough
to recommend management changes and whether or not enough is being done
to increase scientific research/monitoring. One of the key points that
came from the scientists' presentations and group discussion is the
great lack of predictive capacity for scientists to quantify changes
facing fisheries and biodiversity. Uncertainty is amplified for local
areas/communities due to the fact that research occurs on a larger scale
and doesn't look at localized effects. Fishery scientists are reluctant
to predict trends in fish stocks without more confidence supported by
quantifiable data because of the significant management and economic
repercussions. The current system in the Bering Sea, while considerably
more conservative than most other large fishery regions world-wide,
supports year-by-year fisheries management based on stock assessment
models with limited integration of ecosystem parameters. Baseline
information was highlighted as important for recognizing, quantifying
and increasing capacity to anticipate change.

Suggestions for how to integrate ecosystem parameters/address
uncertainty:

-   Best to work with scientists to get environmental information
    integrated; managers are not prepared to make changes to the system
    without direction from scientific advisors.

-   NGOs can develop the "story" combining what we do know of 1) trends
    (warming; northward movement of fish; dramatic loss of sea ice and
    general large scale implications); 2) values (biodiversity; habitat
    protection; conservative catch levels); and 3) objectives for
    fisheries and ecosystem resilience. This will help a scientific
    synthesis to unfold as more quantifiable data is collected and stock
    assessment models are improved.

The group discussed research priorities that might lend themselves to
cooperative projects between fishermen, communities and scientists that
can augment the ongoing work of research scientists. Some suggestions
and advice from the scientists present include:

-   Scattered observations are not very useful. It's not necessary for
    data collection to be frequent but important to be regular (same
    place; time of year).

-   More spatial coverage would enrich what data can tell us.

-   Bottom temperature is a huge gap. Currently temperature data is
    collected in summer surveys. Perhaps NMFS fishery observers or
    fishermen could collect data during other seasons when the fisheries
    are operating.

-   There is a gap in data on end of winter conditions. Filling that gap
    would be useful because of the biological importance of the season
    for primary productivity.

-   Data should be archived at appropriate research institutions (e.g.
    PMEL, AOOS) to be added to the repository of data available to all
    scientists.

-   Baseline data around St. Matthew Is. and Bering Strait is needed.

-   Time series is critical to understanding trends. Northward movement
    of fish should be on at least a 20 year time scale.

-   We don't have all the research questions but as they emerge, the
    time series will be there to help answer them.

-   Community-level (local scale) monitoring could contribute
    significantly to fill data gaps.

-   Long-term community-based monitoring is hard to do with volunteers
    but could be institutionalized in the school system for consistency.

-   Ice edge monitoring should include condition of ice; size of flows;
    biology (e.g. presence/absence of seals).

-   Directed research on the ice edge would also be of use to fishery
    biologists and managers. For example, knowing the fate of primary
    productivity (whether it sinks to the benthos to support a benthic
    system or remains in the water column to generate a more
    pelagic-dominated system).

-   Directed research on the degradation of the ice pack and
    consequences for eiders, walrus, ice seals and whales that use the
    polynyas and leads (e.g. what is happening to stable polynyas in the
    ice pack and what might those changes mean for birds and mammals?)

-   More research and data gathering are needed to foster the
    development of improved predictive models.

How can monitoring data be used?

-   Ecosystem information on productivity influences parameters in fish
    stock assessment models. Quantitative information can be used by
    modelers to incorporate climate change effects into understanding
    and projecting trends in populations.

-   More information related to the loss of sea ice and other parameters
    can help move approach to stock assessments from a single year
    calculation to a multi-year (5, 10, 15 year) projection.

-   Goal should be to integrate climate change parameters into natural
    resource management.

How to proceed:

-   Establish experimental/control/baseline study areas to track trends
    (temperature; productivity; biodiversity; species composition)
    including in the northern Bering Sea not yet perturbed by
    large-scale fishing activity.

-   Develop cooperative research projects (employing traditional/local
    knowledge; fishing industry) to help fill data gaps. This should
    include contributing to large scale monitoring as well as localized
    efforts where scientists are not active.

-   It may be useful to develop scenarios for changing fisheries as a
    tool to prepare responses to a range of possibilities.

-   It's important for coastal communities and fishing industry sectors
    to be part of this discussion, to be aware of the state of science
    and to be part of improving data collection.

-   An inventory of the extent to which ecosystem parameters are
    incorporated in fish stock assessment models may help promote an
    ecosystem approach by identifying where improvements are needed and
    refining research/monitoring gaps.

-   Evaluate how the fisheries management system is vulnerable to
    uncertainty (financing; permitting/access; efficacy of closed areas,
    etc.); identify what assumptions are not applicable in changing
    circumstances caused by climate change; identify what tools are
    applicable to managing risk (decision analysis; game theory;
    financial hedging strategies).

**Summary**

-   The objective should be to stretch the horizon time for the
    management system (from single year management decisions to 5, 10,
    15 year timeframes) and to evaluate where the wheels might come off
    so that we can prepare rather than wait for a crisis.

-   Experimental/control areas are needed to track trends absent of
    human impact.

-   There needs to be flexibility in the management system to address
    problems as they arise (e.g. increasing salmon bycatch in offshore
    fisheries; movement of sensitive species, such as crab, and changing
    spatial overlap of trawl fisheries with areas important to crab
    populations).