Fisheries nationwide are facing major challenges that require collection of real time (RT) and near real time (NRT) information from fishing vessels and other seafood businesses. These data can increase profitability and help with wide-ranging issues including product tracking and marketing, quota accounting, observer coverage, bycatch management, research and monitoring, and spatial mapping.

But major questions remain about these systems:

1. Can data be used to improve the economic success of the industry while also meeting regulatory requirements?
2. Who owns these data and how will they be shared?
3. How do we avoid costly and duplicative systems?
4. How do we ensure that systems designed to share data also protect individual privacy?

These and other questions will be addressed at a symposium and follow-up workshop on electronic fishery information systems to be held in conjunction with the September 2011 American Fisheries Society annual meeting in Seattle. The one-day symposium will be held as part of the AFS conference and will feature more than twenty-five speakers discussing design and application of electronic logbooks and other electronic information systems in the United States and throughout the world.

A follow-up one-day interactive workshop the following day will utilize national and international expertise to address these challenging issues and develop recommendations to improve the design and implementation of these systems.

The symposium and workshop will be of practical value to fishermen, fishery managers, fishery scientists, fishery law enforcement professionals, and NGOs. All other interested parties are welcome to participate.

For more information:
Gil Sylvia, Chair, eFIS Steering Committee, gil.sylvia@oregonstate.edu
Nancy Steinberg, National eFIS Workshop Coordinator, nsteinberg@charter.net