摘要：The debate about the quality of fishers' ecological knowledge (FEK) and its value to fisheries management haslong been present in the literature. This study sought to understand the role of FEK in a particular fisheries management decisionin the U.S. and to evaluate the extent that different stakeholder groups recognized and used FEK in fisheries policy creation.The 1998 implementation of the Western Gulf of Maine Area Closure (WGoMAC) was a management response to the rapiddecline in the Gulf of Maine cod (Gadus morhua) stock. Using structured surveys and semistructured interviews, we collectedinformation from major stakeholder groups that were active during the creation of the area closure: New England FisheryManagement Council (NEFMC) members, Groundfish Advisory Panel members, Groundfish Plan Development Team members,and Maine groundfishers. Results indicated that 95% of respondents believed that fishers possess ecological knowledge thatcould be useful in the fishery management process. In the case of the WGoMAC creation, 62% of respondents indicated thatFEK played a role in the decision, even though 85% recognized obstacles to the use of FEK in the management process. Interviewsdemonstrated that FEK was able to improve upon the spatial resolution of scientific data by identifying seasonal migrationpatterns of prespawning cod and behavioral differences between juvenile and adult cod. This information was a product of apeer-reviewed process among groundfishers and it was used to fine-tune the exact location of the closure. These findings suggestthat there are ways to incorporate FEK into fishery management for the purposes of stock and habitat conservation. Additionally,the benefit of having ecological information that spans different spatial scales for fishery management was observed in thisstudy. By combining the knowledge systems of fishers and fisheries scientists, managers were able to capture ecologicalinformation at a finer scale than the scale at which landings data are reported and fish stocks analyzed
关键词：area closure; fisheries management; fishers' ecological knowledge; Gulf of Maine; issues of scale; Marine Protected;Area (MPA); New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC); social-ecological systems; spatial scale
