Final Report of the Working Group on the Northwest Atlantic Regional Sea (WGNARS)

The seventh meeting of the Working Group on the Northwest Atlantic Regional Sea (WGNARS), chaired by Robin Anderson, Canada and Geret DePiper, USA, was held at the Waquoit Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve in Falmouth, MA, USA, on 21–24 March 2016. The meeting was attended by 19 participants from the US and Canada, with an additional four participants calling in remotely. The overarching objective of WGNARS is to develop Integrated Ecosystem Assessment (IEA) capacity in the Northwest Atlantic region to support ecosystem approaches to science and management, and not specific policy statements. The Northwest Atlantic region has well-developed ocean observation systems, marine ecosystem surveys and habitat studies, though social and economic data collection systems are less well developed, and steps are being taken throughout the region to organize existing information and effectively communicate it to stakeholders and decision-makers. These continuing synthesis efforts were reviewed at the meeting.