Hawaii FEP - Western Pacific Fishery Council

ensuring long-term sustainability by preventing overfishing and by rebuilding overfished stocks.However, the reauthorization of the MSA in 1996 placed additional priority on reducing nontargetor incidental catches, minimizing fishing impacts to habitat, and eliminating interactionswith protected species. While fisheries management has significantly improved in these areas inrecent years, there is now an increasing emphasis on the need to account for and minimize theunintended and indirect consequences of fishing activities on other components of the marineenvironment such as predator–prey relationships, trophic guilds, and biodiversity (Browman andStergiou 2004; Dayton et al. 2002).For example, fishing for a particular species at a level below its maximum sustainable yield cannevertheless limit its availability to predators, which, in turn, may impact the abundance of thepredator species. Similarly, removal of top-level predators can potentially increase populationsof lower level trophic species, thus causing an imbalance or change in the community structureof an ecosystem (Pauly et al. 1998). Successful ecosystem management will require significantincreases in our understanding of the impacts of these changes and the formulation of appropriateresponses to adverse changes.Marine resources are also affected by non-fishing aquatic and land-based activities. For example,according to NOAA’s (2005b) State of Coral Reefs Ecosystems of the United States and PacificFreely Associated States, anthropogenic stressors that are potentially detrimental to coral reefresources include the following:• Coastal development and runoff• Coastal pollution• Tourism and recreation• Ships, boats, and groundings• Anchoring• Marine debris• Aquatic invasive species• Security training activitiesNon-anthropogenic impacts arise from events such as weather cycles, hurricanes, andenvironmental regime changes. While managers cannot regulate or otherwise control suchevents, their occurrence can often be predicted and appropriate management responses can lessentheir adverse impacts.Understanding the complex inter-relationships between marine organisms and their physicalenvironment is a fundamental component of successful ecosystem approaches to management.Obtaining the necessary information to comprehensively assess, interpret, and manage theseinter-relationships will require in-depth and long-term research on specific ecosystems.2.5 Data and Information NeedsNumerous research and data collection projects and programs have been undertaken in theWestern Pacific Region and have resulted in the collection of huge volumes of potentiallyvaluable detailed bathymetric, biological, and other data. Some of this information has been28