Following recommendations from the September 2009 Joint Groundfish Plan Team meeting at the AFSC, economists serving on all four of the NPFMC Plan Teams formed an ad hoc economics workgroup to develop and carry out initiatives for improving the incorporation of socioeconomic information and analyses in the plan team process. Economics & Social Sciences Research (ESSR) Program economists Mike Dalton, Brian Garber-Yonts, and Alan Haynie, in addition to NMFS Alaska Regional Office economist Scott Miller, Professor Joshua Greenberg of University of Alaska Fairbanks, and NPFMC staff member Jane DiCosimo make up the workgroup. The group met 13 November 2009 to identify and prioritize initiatives to be completed over the next year to most constructively contribute to the Plan Team process. Examples of planned workgroup initiatives for 2010 include:
Directly provide economic information important to the Plan Team process.
Provide recommendations and supporting analyses to stock assessment authors to incorporate economic information from the Economic SAFE documents into species stock assessment chapters.
Collaborate with stock assessment authors to incorporate information regarding key regulations (e.g., rationalization, area closures, whale predation, ABCs) and associated changes in fishing practices into stock assessments.
Identify current trends in seafood markets/prices, processing and harvest sector consolidation, and permit or quota prices, where applicable and where information is available.
Refine methods for economic analysis to better inform the plan team process and other economic analysis done by the Region or Council.
Conduct additional economic analysis and provide ongoing peer-review input for economic analyses for inclusion in the Economic SAFE reports.
Provide peer review and discussion for the examination and consideration of economic methods for application to management problems.
Provide a forum for the consideration of the role of non-economic social sciences in the Plan Team process.
Provide resources to help noneconomists on the plan team and elsewhere to better utilize and understand economic data in the Economic SAFE and other economic information that is commonly presented in the Council process.
Write an overview of how to better understand the role of economics in the plan team process.
Work with Plan Team and others to help ensure that fisheries managers have the knowledge and tools available to interpret economic data.
By Brian Garber-Yonts, Mike Dalton and Alan Haynie
