GOAL:
Conserve living marine resources to ensure opportunities for multiple use consistent with ecological, aesthetic, social, economic and recreational considerations.

OBJECTIVES:
Develop management plans which integrate habitat and fishing data to protect resources and improve their utilization, and increase public awareness of living marine resource issues.

STATUS & TRENDS:
Fishery resources are utilized for public benefit (seafood, recreation) but many popular species are over fished, producing diminishing landings and resulting in foregone recreational opportunities. The edibility of some seafood species and the spawning and growth potential of marine resources may be diminished by poor water and sediment quality resulting from shoreside discharges and runoff. Finally, a diverse array of species form the underpinnings of a marine ecosystem at risk due to the actions and inactions of people living in the Long Island Sound watershed. Data and technical assessments need to be improved to allow managers to make informed decisions and develop management plans to protect and restore marine resources. Public awareness must be increased to foster the idea that Long Island Sound's marine species are statewide, regionally and nationally important resources, and that their effective conservation and management requires both public understanding and a commitment to assist in the preservation of habitat and environmental quality.

STRATEGIES:

1. Promote the concept that Long Island Sound's living marine resources are of regional and national, as well as statewide, importance.
2. Develop research, monitoring and other data collection programs to determine the status of species and habitats and the need for and direction of management programs.
3. Develop in-state and regional fishery management plans to control, postpone, or minimize fish mortality and maintain fish stocks at levels which support productive recreational and seafood producing fisheries.
4. Assess the effects of degraded environmental quality on the biology of living marine resource populations and on the edibility of fishery species.
5. Contribute to habitat assessments which conserve physical resources and water quality necessary for preserving high quality living resource populations.
6. Contribute to the evaluation of impacts on living marine resources associated with human uses of Long Island Sound and its watershed and naturally-occurring phenomena which may influence living resource productivity and uses.
7. Improve and expand public access to marine fishery resources.
8. Develop and improve fishways to promote anadromous fishery restoration in tributaries on Long Island Sound.
9. Increase public understanding of living marine resource information through publications and presentations, and support of marine resource conservation and management programs.