This paper serves to set the stage for the conference on the history, status, and future of New England's offshore fisheries. From a global perspective, it provides a brief overview of the geological, physical, and biological processes and features that make New England one of the world's most productive temperate shelf regions, exceeding the primary and secondary production of other renowned temperate fishing grounds. Bathymetry, climate, and tides create a complex mixing regime that enhances nutrient cycling and primary productivity especially over Georges Bank and northeast Gulf of Maine. The glacially influenced coast and seabed create a unique benthic habitat along the US east coast that is a nursery to lobsters and cod, two of the regions most valuable fisheries. Considering the diversity of its habitats, however, New England's marine fauna are rather impoverished due to extinctions related to polar cooling, glaciation, and the absence of suitable refuge habitat to the south. Today's faunal distributions are attributed to recovered ranges pushed south during the glaciation and reinvasions from Europe. The steep north-south thermal gradient along the coast makes it a faunal transition zone. Over the past four centuries, man has contributed to dramatic shifts in the composition of New England's marine biotic communities through harvesting and species introductions. Growing human pressure and the dynamic nature of the productivity of New England waters raise increasing concern over the sustainability of its fisheries.

Overall trends and developments in fishing gear in New England show an increasing efficiency in fish capture. This efficiency is being countered through regulatory means and with gear modifications aimed at increased selectivity and reduced bottom impact. The four most economically valuable fishing techniques in New England — otter trawl, scallop dredge, lobster pot, and gillnet — have adopted and continue to adopt and develop modifications that increase selectivity and reduce impact.

Management of New England's offshore fisheries began in 1950, following ratification of the International Commission for the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries treaty. Due to both limited authority and management protocols, sustainable fisheries were not achieved. Frustrated with severe overfishing, both the United States and Canada opted to declare 200-mile fishery zones effective in 1977. Unfortunately, US jurisdiction within 200 miles failed to prevent overfishing. Previously blamed on foreign vessels, the near demise of offshore stocks in recent years was caused by the domestic fleet. New England's groundfish stocks thus reached their lowest levels since statistics were first maintained. The history of management efforts and the factors that led to today's crisis are examined. If New England's fishing industry is to once again become a viable and vibrant enterprise, new and creative management concepts must be considered.

Canadian marine fisheries management differs from its equivalent in New England in many features, which have their roots in the fundamentally different governmental systems either side of the border. Before their collapse in 1993, the Atlantic Canadian groundfish fisheries were subject to science-based, government-centered management focused on catch quotas and license limitation. Individual quotas were little used outside the corporate sector. Since the collapse, a wide variety of initiatives have been tried. In contrast, the lobster fisheries have operated under license and capacity controls, with restricted seasons and minimum sizes to protect small lobsters. Other fisheries in the region have usually seen some combination of these management approaches.

Contemporary conventional wisdom holds that fishery management in the US has not conserved many of our fishery resources. Many observers cite the New England groundfish fishery as a clear case of mismanagement that has resulted in over exploitation. We present evidence that management institutions have failed to improve economic performance and conserve resources in New England fisheries. In our view, the prospects for successful management are not good unless some fundamental changes are made. We identify two major obstacles to effective conservation and management and conclude with recommendations for reforming our fishery management institutions.

How do the arcane decisions of fishery management affect peoples' lives? How do the deeply ingrained traditions of fishing, fishermen, and fishing communities influence the outcome of management decisions? How much does the adaptive behavior of fishermen influence the effectiveness of fishery management? Fishery management errs in attempting to substitute technical analysis for an understanding of the fishing culture. This paper is a narrative that contrasts the unfulfilled promise of an exclusive fishing zone for American fishermen with New England's contemporary experience.

Mobile fishing gear affects biodiversity and habitat in New England offshore waters through selective fishing activity, seabed disturbance, and discarding and encounter mortality. Selective fishing activity results in geographically localized impacts on habitat and more widespread impacts on biodiversity through the selective removal of specific species with a higher economic value. Seabed disturbance by fishing activity results in physical impacts related to resuspension of fine sediments and scarring of the seabed, chemical effect due to resuspension of nutrients, and biological impacts related to alteration of the benthic community structure. Discards and other benthic fauna that encounter mobile gear and are impacted by the interaction, temporarily alter the ecosystem dynamic. In general, the habitat impacts are restricted to areas of heavy fishing activity, and in shallower water are ameliorated by natural processes that regularly disturb the seabed. Effects on biodiversity are more widespread due to the transient nature of many impacted species. Mobile fishing gear produces approximately 75% of the landings from New England offshore waters. Habitat impact and a loss of biodiversity may be considered a cost of seafood production. Preservation of habitat and biodiversity in marine sanctuaries and reserves is recommended to balance the effects of fishing. This is analogous to society's management strategy in the terrestrial environment.

In New England waters, many fish stocks are in precipitous decline while others are already at historically low levels. Bycatch and discard of non-target species is a major contributor to fishing mortality and is a key factor in the observed decline of stocks. In recent years, there have been many initiatives, both globally and locally, to improve selectivity of fishing nets, or more correctly, to reduce the capture and discard of non-target fish. However, it has also become clear that the natural behavior patterns of many species prevent effective selection. For a trawl gear to be truly selective, every fish that enters the net should be tested to insure that those that are small enough to pass through the meshes escape and those that are above the minimum landing size are retained. In general there are two main techniques to aid fish escapement. The first technique is based on making use of species-specific behavior patterns, whereas the second technique involves a process of mechanical sorting on the basis of size. This paper outlines the most widely used bycatch reduction techniques and, where applicable, provides examples within each category where such techniques have been shown to reduce bycatch and discard. The role of bycatch reduction in conservation of fish stocks is discussed.

Protected species issues are an integral part of New England fishery management. Significant interactions of marine mammals and sea turtles with commercial fishing gear have been documented for many years. Statutes and regulations governing commercial fishery/protected species interactions provide for conservation and recovery of protected marine species. Some species of marine mammals, sea turtles, and fish are listed under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, and all marine mammals are managed under the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972. Both these statues have provisions linking them to commercial fisheries and provide varied strategies for reaching conservation goals. Interactions of protected species with commercial fishing gear range from direct entanglement, capture, and disruption of normal behaviors, to adverse modification of critical habitats. For the foreseeable future of New England fisheries, it is likely that wherever protected species and fishing activity co-occur, interactions will continue. Management trends include increased stakeholder involvement, close coordination with fishery management, and emphasis on technological solutions to interaction problems.

Year-round no-take marine protected areas (MPAs) can enhance conservation of exploited species and biodiversity overall. MPAs have the potential to sustain living marine resources and their support systems at genetic, population-community, ecosystem, and landscape levels. From a fisheries perspective they can protect spawning and nursery areas of key species, maintain age structure (retain older, proportionately more fecund individuals), protect key habitats, and reduce bycatch. MPAs are used sporadically in management of fisheries and are generally based on predicted responses for populations of exploited taxa. However, identification of representative, rare, and high diversity areas of temperate and boreal marine systems, especially on outer continental shelves, is still in its infancy. There is information available from both the scientific literature and from fishers on the life history and behavior of economically important species, on species assemblage patterns, and on physical structure of the marine environment. Such information could be used as a starting point for identifying areas of particular importance to populations or communities of fishes and for the conservation of diversity at the regional scale. Identification of such areas could serve as a basis to design an experimental network of MPAs. Such MPAs, designated for the purpose of maintaining or developing sustainable fisheries, must explicitly be designed within an experimental context, maintaining flexibility for changes in regulations as new information becomes available. Monitoring change in exploited and non-target populations (intra- and inter-guild), habitat complexity indices, and diversity of sentinel taxa (for assessing maintenance of diversity) will be needed to provide feedback to assess the efficacy of MPAs and to recommend changes in the regulatory framework.