Edited by Heymans, J.J.

PREFACE

The Coasts Under Stress project conducts interdisciplinary research of the East and West coast of Canada. The project aims to combine formal scientific and humanist analysis with the experiences of coastal people. As part of Coasts Under Stress, the aim of Back to the Future is to describe the changes in the ecosystem over time, and link these changes to both human and natural phenomena. This report is the fourth in a series of background reports for the Back to the Future project. It was compiled to give an update of revisions to, and analyses done on, the Newfoundland models (NAFO Divisions 2J3KLNO) since the previous publication of these models by Heymans and Pitcher (2002b; a) and Bundy et al. (2000).

The Newfoundland models revised here cover the 1985-87 and 1995-97 periods. The report includes two chapters on historical reconstruction, one on local knowledge and three chapters documenting the changes made to the contemporary models of the ecosystem and analysis of these models. These chapters:  Describe the estimation of First Nations fishing prior to European contact, that was used in the construction of both the historic models;  Provide a micro-level historical reconstruction of Newfoundland fisheries from 1891 to 2000;  Document the evolving use of local ecological knowledge in Newfoundland; Document the changes made to the 1985-87 and 1995-97 models;  Compare the new models to previously published models and the 1450 and 1900 models using information theory (Heymans and Pitcher, 2002a); and Present a first attempt at fitting the 1985-87 model to time series.

The information on Newfoundland given in this report is also used extensively by the Comparative Dynamics of Exploited Ecosystems in the Northwest Atlantic Project (CDEENA), specifically to compare the Newfoundland ecosystem to the Eastern Scotian Shelf and Gulf of St. Lawrence ecosystems. The aim of CDEENA was to do a comparative study of changes in the structure and function of Northwestern Atlantic shelf ecosystems to determine how these may have affected the efficiency of the systems. This was done by identifying and filling some critical data gaps and developing models to investigate ecosystem-level hypotheses such as the effects of environmental variation, predation and fishing effects on cod. The models described in this report was therefore used for testing some of these hypotheses, as is seen in the preliminary results in the sixth paper given here, as well as comparisons across space and time (as seen in chapter five).

Finally, various suggestions have been made to improve the historical models of Newfoundland. These include 1) reducing the biomass estimates of seals for the 1900. New information has been obtained from Garry Stenson (DFO Newfoundland, pers. comm.). 2) Newer information on the biomass of whales and turtles (Tony Pitcher, UBC Fisheries Centre, pers. comm.). 3) The assumption made for First Nation needs of 1 kg food per person per day (Heymans, 2003) is probably too low, and should be increased to at least 2kg. 4) It would be more realistic if we tried to constrain primary production in the 1450 and 1900 models, as the values originally needed were probably too high. Unfortunately, at this time it is not possible to implement these improvements.

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