Report of the ICES Advisory Committee on the Marine Environment, 2002

The ICES Advisory Committee on the Marine Environment (ACME) met from 3 to 7 June 2002. As part of its work during this period, the ACME prepared responses to the requests made to ICES by the OSPAR Commission and the Helsinki Commission. This report contains these responses. In addition to responses to direct requests, this report summarizes the deliberations of ACME on topics for which advice was not directly requested but for which the ACME felt that there was information that would be of interest to the Commissions, ICES Member Countries, and other readers of this report.

As a result of the creation of the Advisory Committee on Ecosystems (ACE), several topics previously handled by ACME have been moved to the remit of ACE and scientific information and advice on these topics can be found in the ACE report for 2002. The topics covered include ecosystem effects of fishing, ecological quality objectives, ecosystem modelling and assessment, marine mammals issues, biodiversity issues, and marine habitat classification and mapping.