Objective:
The goal of this study is to determine the global economic contribution and impact of activities supported by ocean fish populations, now and in the future. The roughly two year project is expected to be completed by May 2010.

The Lenfest Ocean Futures Project focuses on questions of current fisheries management and how these decisions affect ecosystems and in turn feed back into the economy.  The final product will be a single and multi-player gaming environment based on the scientific software Ecopath with Ecosim (EwE) that can be used by scientists and policy makers alike to understand the impact of different fisheries management regimes.

Recently the developers have released a teaser of what the gaming environment will look like.  While you may see a video of the project embeded below it’s highly recommended to visit the YouTube page and watch it in…

Major Research Questions:
1. How much better could the management of Fraser River sockeye have been, in terms of several different objectives, given what we now know about stock-recruitment dynamics?
2. Given uncertainty about the underlying biology of the system, what are the likely economic implications of different management approaches that might be implemented?

Objective:
To compile a database of fish prices for all species from around the world, starting in 1950.