Elaboration of technical details regarding shark targeting and shark management plans for CMM 2014-05

One of the WCPFC’s conservation and management measures requires longline fisheries that target sharks to develop a management plan (CMM 2014-05). The measure then tasks the Commission with reviewing the implementation and effectiveness of those management plans. In order to fully operationalize this CMM it is necessary for the Commission to further elaborate some of its technical elements. For this reason, WCPFC12 requested the Secretariat prepare a paper for the consideration of the Scientific Committee and the Technical and Compliance Committee proposing i) a range of possible definitions for longline fisheries targeting sharks, ii) a list of candidate elements to be considered for the development of shark management plans; and iii) a list of elements to be considered for the evaluation of these shark management plans. This paper presents a number of technical and management considerations on these three topics for discussion.