The New England Region

Abstract

This chapter describes the New England region and the major issues facing this marine fisheries ecosystem, and presents some summary statistics related to the 90 indicators of ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM) criteria. New England contains the second-lowest number of managed taxa among U.S. marine ecosystems, including historically important groundfish species such as Atlantic cod, haddock, Atlantic halibut, commercially valuable Atlantic sea scallop and American lobster, and federally protected Atlantic salmon. The New England social-ecological system is an environment that is responding to the consequences of overfishing, habitat loss, coastal development, and nutrient loading. Overall, EBFM progress has been made at the regional and subregional levels in implementing ecosystem-level planning, advancing knowledge of ecosystem principles, and examining system trade-offs. While much information has been obtained and applied regarding ecosystem-level calculations, syntheses, and models, only partial progress has been observed in using these system-wide emergent properties in management actions. Despite many of these large-scale efforts toward greater scientific understanding of the New England ecosystem, challenges remain toward effectively implementing formalized EBFM management actions and enacting ecosystem-level control rules. Namely, this region currently lacks a completed fishery ecosystem plan (FEP), and only partial progress has occurred toward considering system catch limits for this region. This ecosystem is excelling in the socioeconomic status of its LMRs, and is relatively productive, as related to the determinants of successful LMR management.