Ph.D. candidate Jake Brownscombe travelled to Helsinki, Finland on April 22nd to attend a North Atlantic Recreational Fisheries Workshop and provide a Canadian perspective on recreational fisheries dynamics and issues.
Canada has numerous and diverse fisheries with great social and economic value, and is one of the few nations to collect extensive long-term data on the dynamics of its fisheries thanks to angler mail surveys conducted by Fisheries and Oceans Canada (see our publication in the next issue of the journal Fisheries). By collecting such relevant information, a key connection is formed between our fisheries resources and their socio-economic value, which Jake was able to showcase at this meeting. Many Nordic countries lack such comprehensive information on their recreational fisheries, which was recognized as a key issue in this region because it makes effective management more difficult, especially when balancing competing interests (i.e. recreational and commercial fisheries). Conservation of fisheries resources is a common issue around the world, and working together we may start to build a stronger fisheries assessment framework.
