ICES provides scientific advice and cooperates with authorities on over 240 fish stocks, bycatch, deep sea impacts, and marine protected areas. ICES builds knowledge through fisheries monitoring including catch data, surveys, recreational fishing data, population modeling, and scenario projections. Indicators are becoming more integrated to assess changes in ecosystem productivity and their impacts on fisheries and management targets. Monitoring also covers biodiversity, bycatch, seabed impacts, productivity, distribution shifts, and noise. Transparent decision making uses indicators in databases to close areas to protect vulnerable marine ecosystems working with international authorities. Linking diverse data sources allows exploring trade-offs like economic value from different fishing footprints. Turning monitoring into evidence for societal decisions requires accessible

1. Fisheries and ecosystem approach
From variables to indicators to society
Mark Dickey-Collas
@DickeyCollas

2. ICES - a knowledge
provider to decision
makers
Providing best available, scientific
advice & cooperate with
international & national authorities.
Over 240 fish stocks, bycatch advice,
deep sea impact, marine protected
areas and roughly 25 specific
requests per year.

3. Focused knowledge
building
ICES science plan 2018

4. Fisheries monitoring
• Monitoring quantity, quality & demographics of catch
• Surveys- trawl, acoustic, TV, plankton, tagging
• Recreational catches
• Modelling population dynamics
• Projecting future scenarios
• Fishing vessels activity

5. Annual surveys Trawl
3 200 per year
55 different ship &
gear combinationsAcoustic
Once institutionalized, becomes much less flexible & innovative

6. Indicators are becoming more integrated
Changes in ecosystem productivity/carrying capacity & its impact on
fisheries and management targets
Fogarty et al. 2016. Environmental Development

7. Monitoring for ecosystem approach
• Biodiversity-species & habitats
• Bycatch & discards
• Seabed impact & value
• Productivity changes
• Distributional shifts
• Noise

8. Transparent
decision making
Indicators for Vulnerable
marine ecosystems in ICES
VME data base (2018)
Integrated into a decision
tool for management-
OSPAR & NEAFC
Used to close areas.
vme.ices.dk/map.aspx

9. National to
international:
creating a new
noise registry has
highlighted many
issues
http://underwaternoise.ices.dk

10. ICES – fisheries benthic impact
Landing Value SAR Benthic impact
(kg’s) (EUR) (swept area ratio) (per habitat)
Combining data: fishing footprint…

11. Linking data sources: economic trade-offs
Value landed when 10% of lowest fished area
removed (2012-2015)
http://www.ices.dk/sites/pub/Publication%20Reports/Advice/2017/Special_requests/eu.2017.13.pdf
Exploring scenarios with stakeholders
Process included exploration of
concepts with stakeholders

12. Legitimacy and societal processes
In Europe, reconciling management objectives,
the acceptance of methods, the setting of thresholds &
determining what is good status or
acceptable risk (precautionarity)
are societal decisions.

13. In turning monitoring into the evidence
for societal decisions & management:
• Data must be accessible & translatable
• Information on quality of the data
• Data & systems must be interoperable
• Need for multidisciplinary researchers
• Collaborate with partner organisations
• Researchers provide the evidence but
shouldn’t make the decisions