Ecosystem based fisheries management- Winter School on Towards Ecosystem Based Management of Marine Fisheries – Building Mass Balance Trophic and Simulation Models

A lot of attention has recently been directed at assessing the impacts of fisheries on whole marine ecosystems (ICES, 1998, 2000; Frid et al., 1999b; Hall,1999a,b).This has in part been driven by the need to ensure conservation of biological diversity and sustainable use of the biosphere, key provisions of the convention agreed at the UN Rio summit (Tasker et al .,2000).The utilization of sound ecological models as a tool in the exploration and evaluation of ecosystem health and state, has been encouraged and endorsed by the leading bodies in ecosystem-based fisheries research and management (NRC,1999; ICES, 2000). The potential of the available dynamic ecosystem models to make measurable and meaningful predictions about the effects of fishing on ecosystems has not however been fully assessed