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Yet while such information may well become necessary in the future, 

 when stocks have been restored and when worldwide food demands have 

 intensified, the immediate short-term needs of assessment are to design 

 restoration strategies. And restoration of stocks is relatively simple: 

 reduce the fishing pressure. Clearly it is easier to underestimate 

 available yields than it is to estimate the maximum fishing mortality; 

 and underestimation, while having economic implications, will only serve 

 to restore a stock at a more rapid pace. 



In fact recent legislation requires development of fisheries 

 management plans to produce optimum yield, thereby formally recognizing 

 the economic and social implications of differing allowable yields. 

 Assessment science at NMFS is currently attempting to design models that 

 serve to predict the economic as well as che biological implications of 

 different management goals. Over one million dollars is being budgeted 

 by NMFS for bioeconomic analysis for the coming year. 



This effort, combined with the massive data requirements outlined 

 earlier, indicate that efforts are underway to design systems that will 

 develop a high degree of accuracy . The immediate need for such accuracy 

 may be questionable given the need for stock restoration (and thus the 

 need to reduce rishing pressure to the extent possible). In addition, 

 the preceding sections of this report have shown that such accuracy 

 carries cost implications that may be enormous; it may be far more cost- 

 effective to choose key indicators upon which to make decisions, with all 

 parties participating in those decisions aware that, in the end, yield 

 judgments will remain judgments . 



