State–Federal Summer Flounder Management Roundtable

As part of its ongoing Dialogue on Marine Fisheries, The Heinz Center convened a multisector roundtable of fishery stakeholders to focus on summer flounder on May 16-19, 2001, in the Washington, D.C., area.  Participants included representatives from Atlantic coastal states (Maine to North Carolina), the Atlantic States Marine Fishery Commission, Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, the National Marine Fisheries Service, and environmental organizations, as well as members of recreational and commercial fisheries. Encouraged by the success of the first meeting, participants indicated a desire to continue the Summer Flounder Roundtable.  To this end, November 1, 2001, The Heinz Center convened a planning meeting for Phase 2 of the Summer Flounder Roundtable in Charleston, South Carolina.

The overall goals of the Dialogue on Marine Fisheries were  to create and foster stakeholder collaboration, clarify issues, and develop policy options based on the best analyses available.  Specific goals for the first meeting were to  review the present status of the Summer Flounder Fishery and examine the process that produced the current state of affairs. The primary goal for the second meeting was to determine the necessity and utility of a second phase of the roundtable, and to plan a course of action.  This report is a summary of the background papers and the discussions at the Summer Flounder Roundtable Phase 1meeting and the Phase 2 planning meeting.

A report from these two workshops is available on our publications page.

For more information, please contact Sheila David, Senior Fellow and Project Director