This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). Sustainable Ecosystem-Based Management of Living Marine Resources (SELMR) at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) supports the education of future leaders in the ecosystem-based sustainable stewardship of living marine resources. This interdisciplinary Science Master?s Program (SMP) provides interdisciplinary training in the fundamental principals and analytic tools of fisheries science, oceanography, ecology, economics, management, marine policy, and anthropology using courses and seminars which highlight limitations of traditional management paradigms and challenge students to consider innovative approaches to real-world problems. Classroom instruction is coupled with internship and research experiences that prepare graduates for employment in agencies and organizations where they will fill the need for experts who can connect science with broad environmental, social, and economic considerations. Participation of underrepresented people will be encouraged by recruiting women and members of minorities, especially Alaska Natives. Ecosystem-based management of living marine resources, as required under modern law and policy, has broad societal impacts. Alaska is an ideal setting for exploring these impacts and evaluating alternative management strategies because the waters off Alaska account for a majority of U.S. fish harvests and because stocks of fish and marine mammals off Alaska, while largely healthy, include stocks that are endangered. Utilization of these stocks dates back over 10,000 years and even now ranges from small-scale subsistence and artisanal harvests to technologically advanced industrial-scale fisheries. SELMR graduates will be well-prepared to devise ecosystem-based solutions to critical research and stewardship questions in the sustainable use of living marine resources, skills that are critically needed in today's society.
This project helped the UAF Fisheries Division make changes to the structure of our graduate programs to address the growing need for an ecosystem-based approach to the sustainable management of living marine resources with explicit recognition that humans are integral to fishery social-ecological systems. Project funds supported 10 MS students. The students were drawn from undergraduate programs in the natural and social sciences. In addition to completing core courses for their degree in Fisheries of Marine Biology, SELMR students also completed a set of courses designed to broaden their understanding of biological, ecological, environmental, economic, and social dimensions of marine ecosystems and completed thesis research projects that examined interdisciplinary aspects of marine social-ecological systems. Three courses were created to expand the graduate curriculum to meet the needs of SELMR students. The first course, Social, Oceanographic, and Ecological Perspectives in Marine Ecosystems, a three-week field course served to introduce the incoming students to a mutidisciplinary perspective of marine ecosystems. The second course, Innovative Approaches to Marine Ecosystems focuses on a unique resource management issue each semester and explores environmental, ecological, and social dimensions of that issue through student-led discussions. This course reinforces the team-learning structure of the field course. The third course, The North Pacific Fishery Management Council--A Case Study was designed to take students into the middle of the public process that sets policy for the management of the Gulf of Alaska, Aleutian Islands, Bering Sea, and Arctic marine ecosystems off Alaska. Students were briefed on issues to be addressed at a meeting of the NPFMC, they attended the week-long meeting and met with stakeholders, decision-makers, representatives of commercial, sport and eNGO interest groups, scientists, and agency staff. This class was intended to teach students how they, as professionals, can become engaged in the resource management process and to entice them to do so. In recognition of the increased need for a multidisciplinary approach to marine ecosystems, the UAF MS Fisheries degree program requirements have been revised to require courses in management and human dimensions as well as stock assessment, quantitative population dynamics, and the biology and ecology of fish and shellfish. The SELMR SMP has resulted in two changes in our graduate programs. It has helped create an environment that welcomes students who want to pursue an interdisciplinary approach to marine ecosystems. It has also caused us to commit to ensuring that all of our graduates are familiar with social-ecological systems perspectives of marine ecosystems. This change is consistent with recommendations we have received from prospective employers of our graduates who see a need for well-trained graduates who are able to work across disciplinary boundaries and contribute to an ecosystem-based perspective. In addition, this program has reinforced faculty interest in multidisciplinary research and has led to hiring faculty with expertise in human dimensions of marine ecosystems and faculty who engaged in interdisciplinary research on marine ecosystems in their own dissertation or post-doc research. This should help keep our research relevant to relevant to resource managers and it should keep us at the forefront of basic research on sustainable ecosystem-based management of fisheries social-ecological systems.
