Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries. Evaluation of multi-annual plans for cod in Irish Sea, Kattegat, North Sea, and West of Scotland (STECF-11-07)

A joint ICES / STECF meeting was held in Hamburg 20-24 June 2011, to prepare an impact assessment for Southern hake, Nerphrops and Angler fish and Baltic cod and an Evaluations of existing plans for Kattegat, North Sea, West of Scotland and Irish Sea cod. The meeting involved STECF, ICES scientists dealing with Economy and Biology and included Observers (Commission staff, Managers, Stakeholders). Three separate reports to the STECF were prepared by the EWG-11- 07, one on the Impact Assessment of Southern hake, Nerphrops and Angler fish (STECF 11-06) and another on the Impact Assessments for Baltic cod (STECF 11-05) and the third on the Evaluation of Cod in Kattegat, North Sea, West of Scotland and Irish Sea (STECF 11-07). All reports were reviewed by the STECF during its 37th plenary meeting held from 11 to 15 July 2011 in Copenhagen, Denmark. The observations, conclusions and recommendations, in this report represent the outcomes of the Evaluation of Multi-Annual plans for cod in Kattegat, North Sea, Irish Sea and West of Scotland

Sustainable Ecolabelled Seafood from the East China Sea: Regional and General Regulatory Regimes

The aim of this work is to conduct a systematical review of fisheries management and to be an easy-understood guidebook for building an ecolabelling scheme of fisheries in the East China Sea, and also for Asian countries having plights of lacking good marine scientific research, advanced fisheries management, and public marine conservation awareness. For this purpose, details of ecolabelling mechanism and the definitions of sustainable seafood are explored and a scoring checklist for ecolabelled seafood is created as a check tool, together with a certification standard named ProFish. This work examines multiple types of legal documents, among them international conventions related to fisheries and marine protected area, FAO agreements, WTO fisheries subsidies negotiation history and existing fisheries agreement sin the East China Sea, Landing Declaration and Sales Notes in the European Union and Norway, to seek legal tools and guidelines that can help Taiwan upgrade fisheries managements and marine health status better. Domestic fisheries regulations of East China Sea littoral countries, including Japan and China, are comprehensively compared. The ownership of and the legal transfer of property in marine life, capital-labor relations in fisheries, input and output controls over fishing capability, and fishery managers identity are illustrated in detail. Furthermore, sharks, crabs, mackerels, neritic squid, and mahi-mahi fishing regulations among Taiwan, Japan and China are reviewed thoroughly. Preliminary assessments of five fisheries in Taiwan are evaluated by ProFish checklist, and mackerel has the highest potential to become the first seafood certified as a sustainable ecolabel. This work concludes that a more centralized fisheries management competent authority can resolve most obstacles. A quasi-governmental-based accreditation organization is suggested for the government first in order to promote a seafood ecolabelling scheme smoothly in Taiwan. Establishing a Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries is important. It is vital to introduce AI technologies into fisheries management measures to meet the need of monitoring and surveillance fishing activities at any time. Setting up nanometer-sized marine protected areas first to form a netowrk is the best policy in politically-difficult regions. Reducing the fishboat fuel subsidy and introducing a higher subsidy for mandatory closed fishing seasons is necessary to develop a sustainable fishery industry

End-to-end modeling as part of an integrated research program in the Bering Sea

Traditionally, the advice provided to fishery managers has focused on the trade-offs between short- and long-term yields, and between future resource size and expected future catches. The harvest control rules that are used to provide management advice consequently relate catches to stock biomass levels expressed relative to reference biomass levels. There are, however, additional trade-offs. Ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM) aims to consider fish and fisheries in their ecological context, taking into account physical, biological, economic, and social factors. However, making EBFM operational remains challenging. It is generally recognized that end-to-end modeling should be a key part of implementing EBFM, along with harvest control rules that use information in addition to estimates of stock biomass to provide recommendations for management actions. Here we outline the process for selecting among alternative management strategies in an ecosystem context and summarize a Field-integrated End-To-End modeling program, or FETE, intended to implement this process as part of the Bering Sea Project. A key aspect of this project was that, from the start, the FETE included a management strategy evaluation component to compare management strategies. Effective use of end-to-end modeling requires that the models developed for a system are indeed integrated across climate drivers, lower trophic levels, fish population dynamics, and fisheries and their management. We summarize the steps taken by the program managers to promote integration of modeling efforts by multiple investigators and highlight the lessons learned during the project that can be used to guide future use and design of end-to-end models

Ecosystem science capabilities required to support NOAA’s mission in the year 2020

The mission of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is to understand and predict changes in the Earth’s environment and conserve and manage coastal and marine resources to meet our nation’s economic, social and environmental needs (NOAA, 2004). In meeting its marine stewardship responsibilities, NOAA seeks to ensure the sustainable use of resources and balance competing uses of coastal and marine ecosystems, recognizing both their human and natural components (NOAA, 2004). Authorities for executing these responsibilities come from over 90 separate pieces of Federal legislation, each with unique requirements and responsibilities. Few of these laws explicitly mandate an ecosystem approach to management (EAM) or supporting science. However, resource managers, the science community, and increasingly, the public, are recognizing that significantly greater connectedness among the scientific disciplines is needed to support management and stewardship responsibilities (Browman and Stergiou, 2004; 2005). Neither NOAA nor any other science agency can meet the increasing demand for ecosystem science products addressing each of its mandates individually. Even if it was possible, doing so would not provide the integration necessary to solve the increasingly complex array of management issues. This focus on the integration of science and management responsibilities into an ecosystem view is one of the centerpieces of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy’s report (USCOP, 2004), and the Administration’s response to that report in the U.S. Ocean Action Plan (CEQ, 2004). (PDF contains 100 pages

Report of Blue Economy Working Group-3 on Fisheries, Aquaculture & Fish Processing

Report of Blue Economy Working Group-3 on Fisheries, Aquaculture & Fish Processin