Northwest Atlantic
Fisheries Organization

Symposia and Conferences

NAFO has held nine symposia since 2001, often in conjunction with other organisations sharing similar interests on the long-term sustainability of fisheries, fish stocks and the ecosystems they occupy. These have been supported by four dedicated workshops covering a variety of specialised topics that support the work of the Scientific Council. Proceedings are published in the NAFO’s Journal of Northwest Atlantic Fishery Science or in the journal of the organising partner. A full list is given below:

Environmental and Ecosystem Histories in the Northwest Atlantic - What Influences Living Marine Resources? (September 2006)

The Scientific Council of NAFO is pleased to announce this Symposium to be held in conjunction with the NAFO 28th Annual Meeting, at the Holiday Inn, Harbourview, in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada. The Symposium will be co-convened by:

Bill Brodie (Canada), Jason Link (USA), Helle Siegstad (Denmark/Greenland), and Manfred Stein (EU-Germany), and organized by the NAFO Secretariat.

The Ecosytems to be considered cover all the NAFO Subareas and comprise the Ecosytems of Greenland (East/West), Labrador Shelf/Grand Banks, Scotian Shelf Banks and Gulf of Maine/Georges Bank. The scope of the Symposium is to describe and compare these ecosystems, considering their environmental and marine resources.

Theme Sessions:

Large-scale climatic forcing on the physical oceanography of the Northwest Atlantic seas.
Physical and biological factors structuring ecosystems in the Northwest Atlantic (e.g., nutreint availability, sea ice, low temperatures, low species diversity, etc.).
The transfer of energy and material through food webs, from primary producers through zooplanton and benthic fauna to fish, seabirds, marine mammals, and fisheries.
Recent changes in NW Atlantic ecosystems, time scales of variation, and possible cause, including fishery effects.
Inter-comparisons between marine ecosystems (e.g. between those in the NW Atlantic, and between NW Atlantic and other areas).
Economic, social impacts of ecosytem changes in NW Atlantic.

Invited key-note speakers will be sought for some of these sessions. Oral presentations and posters are welcome to be submitted for consideration.

Paper titles are still being accepted and should be submitted with an abstract by 30 June 2006. Papers will be selected on the basis of their relevance to the topic and scientific suitability. It is anticipated that the proceedings of the Symposium will be published in the Journal of Northwest Atlantic Fishery Science, following normal peer-review process of the Journal.