Fisheries Ecology

Evidence-based decisions about Canada’s natural resources typically come from formal assessments that engage stakeholders only as critics of scientific knowledge developed without their participation. This kind of passive engagement fails to capture potentially valuable knowledge held by community members as part of the scientific process, limiting understanding by scientists and buy-in from stakeholder groups. By studying how ideas become quantified, this research aims to transform how community knowledge about natural resources can become part of the process of evidence-based decision making. Specifically, the research will develop new methods to help accurately translate ideas held by community members into quantitative models that can be evaluated scientifically. In doing so, the project aims to figure out how best to capture community-held scientific knowledge so that the diverse views of Canadians are reflected in fisheries stock assessments and associated management decisions. The work is unique in elevating the value of non-scientific views within the formal scientific process and will help to bridge the gap between fisheries science and stakeholders through new avenues of active engagement.