Report of the Joint ICES and Pelagic RAC Workshop on Pelagic Fisheries within the Marine Ecosystem

The “Joint ICES and Pelagic RAC Workshop on Pelagic Fisheries within the Marine Ecosystem: Tradeoffs and potential benefits of the Ecosystem Approach” (WKPE-LECO) chaired by Aukje Coers, the Netherlands, Mark Dickey-Collas, the Nether-lands, Christian Olesen, Denmark, and Sean O’Donoghue, Ireland, was set up jointly by ICES and the Pelagic Regional Advisory Council (PRAC). This was in response to the PRAC requesting ICES SCICOM to facilitate an exchange of views between scien-tists and stakeholders on the potential implications of an ecosystem approach to fish-eries management. 53 participants took part in the workshop from 29–30 September 2010. Three separate parallel sessions were held focusing on: the effects of environ-mental variability on pelagic fish stocks, the different ecosystem services of pelagic fish, and the effects of other users of the sea and competition for space on pelagic fisheries.