WGNARS - First Interim Report of the Working Group on the Northwest Atlantic Regional Sea

The fifth meeting of the Working Group on the Northwest Atlantic Regional Sea (WGNARS), chaired by Sarah Gaichas, USA, and Robin Anderson, Canada was held at the Waquoit Bay Na-tional Estuarine Research Reserve in Falmouth, MA, USA, from 3–7 February 2014. The meeting was well-attended, with 33 participants from the US, Canada, Norway, and the ICES Secretariat. 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 man-agement. The NW Atlantic region has well-developed ocean observation systems, ecosystem surveys and habitat studies, and steps are being taken throughout the region to organize existing information and effectively communicate it to stakeholders and decision-makers. These contin-uing synthesis efforts were reviewed at the meeting.