Local-Scale Ecosystem-Based Fisheries in a Gulf of Maine Estuary: Managing for Complexity, Adapting to Uncertainty

Abstract.-A comprehensive resource management plan for the Taunton Bay estuary, Maine, was developed to support the estuary's capacity to accommodate human uses without degrading ecosystem integrity or resilience. The initial phases of this plan, which has little precedent in the Gulf of Maine, target issues of immediate concern regarding environmental alteration and stock depletion associated with fisheries for four benthic species. Having no dedicated funding, our overall approach to developing ecosystem-based fisheries for this estuary relies heavily on thrift and efficiency, two attributes not usually associated with managing for ecosystem complexity. Despite our gaining a better understanding of this estuary through sitespecific research and management activities, the complexity of the ecosystem's components and the unpredictability of its responses to management actions leave much uncertainty. Advancing a nascent, ecosystem-based management effort under such conditions requires the adoption of coping strategies that allow positive shifts in management. Our overall approach emphasizes using alternative knowledge systems to their best advantage, encouraging the participation of and provision of guidance by local resource users, prioritizing key information needs, conducting local research and monitoring, creating opportunities for prompt management corrections, striving for fairness to and stewardship from resource users, and encouraging a long-term commitment to this process