The Estuarine Ecological Knowledge Network: Future Prospects

Abstract

Estuaries are profoundly rich, diverse, and complex ecosystems, and crucial to the overall health of Earth's oceans. Estuarine ecological complexity is matched by tremendous human cultural diversity. In the United States, millions of people live in estuarine environments from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic—many of whom directly depend on the productivity of marine resources in both commercial and subsistence fishing activities. Yet, estuaries are also among Earth's most threatened landscapes against the backdrop of global warming, sea-level rise, agricultural and industrial pollution, habitat loss, overfishing, and so on. This represents a looming disaster for our oceans at a global scale. The Estuarine Ecological Knowledge Network (EEKN) is based on the idea that fishing communities living within major estuaries are the key to ensuring the health of global oceans. Coastal fishing communities have vast accumulations of ecological knowledge about the functioning of estuarine ecosystems and interact with those ecosystems in intimate ways on a daily basis. This network is designed to connect coastal communities in monitoring the health of estuarine ecosystems and in using traditional ecological knowledge to develop strategies for enhancing ecosystem health and resilience.