Bering Sea Fishery Ecosystem Plan

The Bering Sea FEP is a living document that will be updated over time and used to guide policy options and associated opportunities, risks, and tradeoffs affecting FMP species and the broader Bering Sea ecosystem in a systematic manner. The adopted “Core” document for the Bering Sea FEP documents current procedures and best practices for ecosystem-based fishery management (EBFM), provides brief, targeted, and evolving descriptions of the interconnected physical, biological, and human/institutional Bering Sea ecosystem and through ecosystem thresholds and targets, and directs how that information can be used to guide fishery management options.

The Council underscored its commitment to EBFM with the adoption of an ecosystem approach policy statement in 2014. With the development of a Bering Sea FEP, the Council has progressed on the continuum of EBFM, allowing Alaska to lead internationally in fishery management, and provide a clear record of the Council’s ecosystem-based policy decision making, while still applying policies that are suited to Alaskan circumstances. In 2007, the Council developed an FEP for the Aleutian Islands, which describes ecosystem processes, and physical, biological, socioeconomic, and management interactions in the area, and includes a qualitative ecosystem risk assessment and description of how risk associated with these interactions is currently being addressed by managers.

The Council’s interest was to develop an FEP that:

• provides added value to existing Council documents, processes, and decision-making;
• delivers targeted, evolving ecosystem evaluations but does not overwhelm the audience with a compilation of ecosystem information; and
• results in measurable improvements to Bering Sea fishery management, but does not directly authorize management actions (action-informing rather than action-forcing).