Does ICCAT need ecosystem plans? a pilot ecosystem plan for the Atlantic tropical ecoregion.

The implementation of an Ecosystem Approach Fisheries Management (EAFM) in ICCAT has been slow and patchy, as it lacks a long-term plan, vision and guidance on how to operationalize it. Ecosystem plans are needed to formalize the process of operationalizing the EAFM by identifying and formalizing ecosystem goals and objectives, planning actions based on priorities, measuring performance of the whole fishery system, addressing trade-offs, and incorporating them in fisheries management. The Specific Contract N0 2 under the Framework Contract - EASME/EMFF/2016/008 provisions of Scientific Advice for Fisheries Beyond EU Waters has developed a pilot ecosystem plan for the tropical ecoregion of the Atlantic Ocean. In this document, we highlight the main potential benefits of developing ecosystem plans in ICCAT. Second, we briefly describe the main core elements developed in the pilot ecosystem plan for the Tropical ecoregion of the Atlantic Ocean. Third, we summarize our main thoughts and lessons learned in the development of this pilot ecosystem plan for one ecoregion within ICCAT. Last, we propose a list of actions, research activities and capacity building activities to foster the development, use and implementation of ecosystem plans in ICCAT.Versión del edito

Selecting ecosystem indicators for fisheries targeting highly migratory species: An EU project to advance the operationalization of the EAFM in ICCAT and IOTC

Several international legal agreements and guidelines have set the minimum standards and key principles to guide the implementation of an ecosystem approach to fisheries management (EAFM). However, the implementation of an EAFM in tuna Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs) has been patchy and lack a long-term plan, vision and guidance on how to operationalize it. The Specific Contract N0 2 “selecting ecosystem indicators for fisheries targeting highly migratory species-” (SC02 project) under the Framework Contract - EASME/ EMFF/2016/008 provisions of Scientific Advice for Fisheries Beyond EU Waters- addresses several scientific challenges and provides insights to support the implementation of an EAFM through collaboration and consultation with the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) and the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC). Specifically, this project first highlights properties of success and best practices from other regions of the world in operationalizing the ecosystem approach that potentially could be transferred to ICCAT and IOTC. Second, it delivered a list of potential ecosystem indicators of relevance to tuna RFMOs (ICCAT and IOTC) that are suitable to track the impacts of fisheries targeting tuna and tuna-like species on the broader pelagic ecosystem. Third, it designed a general framework based on a rule-based decision tree to provide guidance on how reference points could be set and used for diverse types of ecosystem indicators. Fourth, it proposed candidate ecoregions within the Atlantic and Indian Oceans which could be used to guide region-based ecosystem plans, assessments and research to ultimately provide better ecosystem-based advice to inform fisheries management. Fifth, it developed two pilot ecosystem plans for two case study regions, the tropical ecoregion within the ICCAT convention area, and the temperate ecoregion within the IOTC convention area. At this stage, these pilot ecosystem plans aim to create awareness about the need for ecosystem planning, start a discussion about the elements that need to be part of a planning process, and initiate a discussion in ICCAT and IOTC about the potential needs of ecosystem plans and their function. Finally, this project provided recommendations to foster the potential development, use, and implementation of ecosystem plans in ICCAT and IOTC

Selecting ecosystem indicators for fisheries targeting highly migratory species: An EU project to advance the operationalization of the EAFM in ICCAT and IOTC

Several international legal agreements and guidelines have set the minimum standards and key principles to guide the implementation of an ecosystem approach to fisheries management (EAFM). However, the implementation of an EAFM in tuna Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs) has been patchy and lack a long-term plan, vision and guidance on how to operationalize it. The Specific Contract N0 2 “selecting ecosystem indicators for fisheries targeting highly migratory species-” (SC02 project) under the Framework Contract - EASME/ EMFF/2016/008 provisions of Scientific Advice for Fisheries Beyond EU Waters- addresses several scientific challenges and provides insights to support the implementation of an EAFM through collaboration and consultation with the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) and the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC). Specifically, this project first highlights properties of success and best practices from other regions of the world in operationalizing the ecosystem approach that potentially could be transferred to ICCAT and IOTC. Second, it delivered a list of potential ecosystem indicators of relevance to tuna RFMOs (ICCAT and IOTC) that are suitable to track the impacts of fisheries targeting tuna and tuna-like species on the broader pelagic ecosystem. Third, it designed a general framework based on a rule-based decision tree to provide guidance on how reference points could be set and used for diverse types of ecosystem indicators. Fourth, it proposed candidate ecoregions within the Atlantic and Indian Oceans which could be used to guide region-based ecosystem plans, assessments and research to ultimately provide better ecosystem-based advice to inform fisheries management. Fifth, it developed two pilot ecosystem plans for two case study regions, the tropical ecoregion within the ICCAT convention area, and the temperate ecoregion within the IOTC convention area. At this stage, these pilot ecosystem plans aim to create awareness about the need for ecosystem planning, start a discussion about the elements that need to be part of a planning process, and initiate a discussion in ICCAT and IOTC about the potential needs of ecosystem plans and their function. Finally, this project provided recommendations to foster the potential development, use, and implementation of ecosystem plans in ICCAT and IOTC

Evaluating changes in marine communities that provide ecosystem services through comparative assessments of community indicators

Fisheries provide critical provisioning services, especially given increasing human population. Understanding where marine communities are declining provides an indication of ecosystems of concern and highlights potential conflicts between seafood provisioning from wild fisheries and other ecosystem services. Here we use the nonparametric statistic, Kendall's tau, to assess trends in biomass of exploited marine species across a range of ecosystems. The proportion of 'Non-Declining Exploited Species' (NDES) is compared among ecosystems and to three community-level indicators that provide a gauge of the ability of a marine ecosystem to function both in provisioning and as a regulating service: survey-based mean trophic level, proportion of predatory fish, and mean life span. In some ecosystems, NDES corresponds to states and temporal trajectories of the community indicators, indicating deteriorating conditions in both the exploited community and in the overall community. However differences illustrate the necessity of using multiple ecological indicators to reflect the state of the ecosystem. For each ecosystem, we discuss patterns in NDES with respect to the community-level indicators and present results in the context of ecosystem-specific drivers. We conclude that using NDES requires context-specific supporting information in order to provide guidance within a management framework

Ecological indicators to capture the effects of fishing on biodiversity and conservation status of marine ecosystems

IndiSeas ("Indicators for the Seas") is a collaborative international working group that was established in 2005 to evaluate the status of exploited marine ecosystems using a suite of indicators in a comparative framework. An initial shortlist of seven ecological indicators was selected to quantify the effects of fishing on the broader ecosystem using several criteria (i.e., ecological meaning, sensitivity to fishing, data availability, management objectives and public awareness). The suite comprised: (i) the inverse coefficient of variation of total biomass of surveyed species, (ii) mean fish length in the surveyed community, (iii) mean maximum life span of surveyed fish species, (iv) proportion of predatory fish in the surveyed community, (v) proportion of under and moderately exploited stocks, (vi) total biomass of surveyed species, and (vii) mean trophic level of the landed catch. In line with the Nagoya Strategic Plan of the Convention on Biological Diversity (2011-2020), we extended this suite to emphasize the broader biodiversity and conservation risks in exploited marine ecosystems. We selected a subset of indicators from a list of empirically based candidate biodiversity indicators initially established based on ecological significance to complement the original IndiSeas indicators. The additional selected indicators were: (viii) mean intrinsic vulnerability index of the fish landed catch, (ix) proportion of non-declining exploited species in the surveyed community, (x) catch-based marine trophic index, and (xi) mean trophic level of the surveyed community. Despite the lack of data in some ecosystems, we also selected (xii) mean trophic level of the modelled community, and (xiii) proportion of discards in the fishery as extra indicators. These additional indicators were examined, along with the initial set of IndiSeas ecological indicators, to evaluate whether adding new biodiversity indicators provided useful additional information to refine our understanding of the status evaluation of 29 exploited marine ecosystems. We used state and trend analyses, and we performed correlation, redundancy and multivariate tests. Existing developments in ecosystem-based fisheries management have largely focused on exploited species. Our study, using mostly fisheries independent survey-based indicators, highlights that biodiversity and conservation-based indicators are complementary to ecological indicators of fishing pressure. Thus, they should be used to provide additional information to evaluate the overall impact of fishing on exploited marine ecosystems