Report of the Thirteenth ICES Dialogue Meeting: Advancing scientific advice for an ecosystem approach to management: collaboration amongst managers, scientists, and other stakeholders

The Thirteenth ICES Dialogue Meeting “Advancing scientific advice for an ecosystem approach to management: Collaboration amongst managers, scientists, and other stakeholders” was held at Dublin Castle, Dublin, Ireland, on 26 and 27 April 2004. The meeting was one of the significant government-sponsored events held under the Irish Presidency of the European Union and was opened by Ireland’s Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Mr Dermot Ahern, TD. The Marine Institute hosted the meeting. Participation is listed in Annex 1. The programme is presented in Annex 2. Since 1980, ICES has been organizing Dialogue Meetings to provide a forum at which scientists and managers can come together to discuss matters of mutual importance in relation to the provision of scientific advice. The overall objective of Dialogue Meetings is for ICES to communicate with its partners to ensure that there is good understanding of mutual requirements in relation to the formulation and provision of advice. While early Dialogue Meetings were held with groups of fishermen, this later evolved to dialogues more with the management organizations, principally the Commissions. The Thirteenth Dialogue Meeting, with its broad and complex topic, brought together higher-level

government administrators at the national and international level, scientists involved in the process of developing scientific advice in relation to an ecosystem approach, and a range of stakeholders from industries such as fishing, chemicals, and shipping.