Theory and Practice of Sustainable Management of Living Marine Resources

Sustainable management of marine living resources requires understanding of both the biology and ecology of the harvested organisms, as well as the management procedures and systems. Management of marine living resources is built on theoretical concepts and practical approaches such as the precautionary principle and expectations of long-term sustainability and regulated by several national and international laws and agreements. For example, the UN Sustainable Development Goal 14, Life below water, guides us to ¿conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development¿.

This course will provide a thorough introduction to the framework of modern fisheries management both nationally and internationally, offering insights to its key components: stock assessments, harvest control rules, management strategy evaluations, and policy. Examples of taxa other than fish will also be presented. During this course you will learn about the processes that regulate population dynamics and apply basic models for population productivity that are currently used to study these populations. Through active learning and exercises, you will learn to fit simple stock assessment models used for estimating population size and choosing which model best fits to the data availability and other specificities of a given population.

Throughout you will gain confidence in utilizing R for data handling and manipulation, fitting basic models and investigating model fit by statistical validation methods. Moreover, you will also train interpreting what the model parameters mean, and what is their biological significance.

On completion of the course the student should have the following learning outcomes defined in terms of knowledge, skills and general competence:

Knowledge

The student can

• discuss the framework of modern fisheries management and its key components, including stock monitoring and assessment, harvest control rules, and management strategy evaluation
• explain the processes that regulate population and fisheries dynamics
• outline the theoretical basis and practical applications of biological reference points and the precautionary approach
• describe different types of assessment models (data-poor/moderate/data-rich) used for management of marine living resources

Skills

The student is able to

• apply and interpret basic models of population productivity (including recruitment, growth, maturity, and natural mortality)
• choose which assessment method is most appropriate under given circumstances
• operate and interpret simple assessment models
• assess and characterize uncertainty of model estimates

General competence

The student is able to

• utilize R for data reading, storing and manipulation, simple programming and fitting basic models
• interpret the meaning of model parameters and their biological significance
• Use statistical validation methods to investigate model fit

Spring.

This course has a limited capacity, enrolment is based on application. The application deadline is Wednesday in week 2 for the spring semester. Please see this page for more information. You will receive confirmation of whether you received a seat in Studentweb no later than Monday the week after the deadline.

It is compulsory to attend the first lecture/orientation meeting, or you risk losing your seat. If you are unable to attend the first lecture, you must contact the Study Section (studie.bio@uib.no). The time of the first lecture/orientation meeting can be found in the schedule on the course website or on Mitt UiB.