Working Group on the Northwest Atlantic Regional Sea (WGNARS)

The Working Group on the Northwest Atlantic Regional Sea (WGNARS) helps develop scientific support for integrated ecosystem assessments (IEAs) of the Northwest Atlantic region and to support ecosystem approaches to science and management. The objectives of WGNARS over the last 3 years were to explore the use and expansion for tools to provide scientific advice on social-ecological systems. These tools include: operationalization of indicators for IEAs, expanded use of conceptual models, increased transparency in methodology and data uses (i.e. reproducible reporting), and expanded uses of novel communication tools. 

WGNARS also provided workshops and seminars on open source information to support IEAs and ecosystem based management. In 2021, WGNARS hosted a Reproducible Reporting in R (R3) workshop focused on developing transparent and reproducible workflows in R. In 2022, WGNARS hosted a seminar on Structured Decision Making, Risk Assessment, and understanding fisher behaviour in Governance. 

Future work of WGNARS continues to build on the current efforts to improve transparency in the delivery of scientific advice, use novel methods to engage and communicate with rightsholders and stakeholders, and to continue to develop and refine socio-economic, habitat, and ecological indicators for operational use in management and decision making.