Global database and common toolbox for tuna fisheries

Assessing the status of tuna and tuna-like populations for providing management advice requires the analysis of multiple data sets collected by the Contracting Parties and Cooperating non-contracting parties of Tuna Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (tRFMOs) Conventions. Data on the magnitude and composition of landings, discards, and fishing effort are currently managed at basin scale by the Secretariats of the tRFMOs. We have developed a global harmonized database for tuna fisheries data by collating the public domain datasets from ICCAT, IOTC, IATTC and WCPFC. The database covers the period 1919-2014 and is freely accessible online along with a set of open source codes to handle the data. Our objective is to propose services to format and exchange tuna fisheries data and indicators, and promote standards for metadata and data formats to facilitate their through web-based tools. Among others, the expected benefits of the project are the promotion of communication towards tRFMOs and their member States as well as to the general public and the increase of transparency and accessibility to fisheries data sets, indicators, underlying codes, and related expertise.