California Ocean Protection Council National Collaborative Fisheries Research Workshop (May 2008)

CONCUR completed an assignment for the California Ocean Protection Council wherein we helped design and facilitate a two-day nationwide workshop on Collaborative Fisheries Research (CFR). Our team conducted pre-workshop interviews to help create the workshop agenda, and used our working knowledge of ocean and coastal policy, including the status of California ocean fisheries, to refine approaches to be used during the workshop. Fisheries managers, fishermen, scientists, community groups and policy makers from throughout California and the nation attended the workshop.

The focus was twofold: 1. To hear about lessons learned from existing CFR projects from different areas of the nation; and 2. To solicit feedback on how to establish a new statewide CFR program for California that may then be extended to include other west coast states. CONCUR helped organize and facilitate panel discussions, breakout sessions and the plenary, and provided a comprehensive summary memo that highlighted what was discussed, including a framework and major institutional elements of a statewide CFR program.