Staff outlines tools to bring fishermen observations into council science and reports

Council staff presented a series of proposals to integrate local knowledge (LK) into council decision‑making while sequencing indigenous knowledge (IK) work to a later phase. Staff argued LK and IK have different characteristics and should be handled distinctly: LK typically accrues over a few generations while IK can span much longer timescales.

Gilly explained several near‑term ideas drawn from other regional councils: an email portal to collect on‑water observations (modeled on the Mid‑Atlantic council approach) that could feed an ecosystem status report section; evening sessions at council meetings to gather fishermen observations in person; annual fishery performance reports summarizing fisher perspectives for SSCs and stock assessment teams; and an on‑the‑water feedback portal like the Gulf Council’s "fisherman’s feedback tool." These approaches are intended to provide additional contextual information to complement stock assessments, especially for data‑poor fisheries.

Heather asked whether there are clear examples where local or indigenous knowledge has actually been used in council decision‑making rather than just collected. Gilly acknowledged the difficulty of integrating such information and said staff are looking to other councils’ practices for ways to create ‘‘on‑ramps’’—clear thresholds and processes—so that LK can inform scientific or analytical products where appropriate.

Staff proposed workshops or light evening sessions to identify priorities and pathways that would be most useful to knowledge holders and recommended advisory bodies weigh in on which of the proposed tools would deliver the most value.