Fishery coastal and ocean management; integrated systems approaches for sustainability and resilience

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This research will help meet one of the most challenging problems today: achieving sustainability in fisheries and in the human use of oceans and coasts, within Canada and globally. This challenge is highlighted by the 1990s collapse of Atlantic Canada's cod fishery, and the rapidly increasing pressures on coasts around the world. Accordingly, this research will contribute to improving management of fisheries, coastal and marine resource systems, and enhancing sustainability of marine ecosystems, fishing industries and coastal communities - providing guidelines for effectively formulating and assessing sustainable development strategies, in fisheries facing sustainability threats, and in coastal systems that need to balance competing uses. Specifically, the research will address the need for broader thinking on fisheries, coasts and oceans, through the ecosystem approach to fisheries, marine protected areas, integrated management, and local-level methods of coastal and ocean management. Three examples of the research to be carried out are as follows. First, I will study the lobster fisheries of Atlantic Canada, the most important in the region and among the most profitable in the world today, assessing the operation of the fishery and the choice of management options so as to improve fishery sustainability. Second, I will seek better understanding of how fisheries interact with marine protected areas (MPAs, parts of the ocean designated for special protection and management), by developing a decision framework for MPA implementation. Third, I will contribute to the theory and practice of local-level coastal management through an analysis of human and ecological aspects in specific bays such as Malpeque Bay, PEI, or Annapolis Basin, Nova Scotia. The multidisciplinary nature of this research plan will provide the opportunity for Canadian and international agencies to adopt new approaches that improve on the inefficient manner by which management took place in the past. Furthermore, this research will help train both undergraduate and graduate students, Canada's future researchers, in multidisciplinary approaches that address key environmental and sustainable development themes.