ISSF Skipper's Workshops Round 7

In 2017 the ISSF Skippers Workshops round 7 reached a record number of 794 participants, where 88 percent participation was comprised by tuna purse seiner skippers (457) and crew (238). New workshop locations included Zhoushan in China, or Ambon, Makassar and Manado in Indonesia. In its second year now, the train the trainer program in Indonesia, established to reach small-vessel tuna purse seiner captains widely distributed across the archipelago, delivered 7 workshops. In total 18 Skippers Workshops were conducted in 10 countries covering fleets working in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean (e.g. China, Federated States of Micronesia, United States of America, Marshall Islands, Indonesia), Atlantic Ocean (e.g. Spain, Ghana, France), Indian Ocean (e.g. Spain, France), and the Eastern Pacific Ocean (e.g. Ecuador, Peru).
The workshops continued to show advances in the use of lower entanglement risk FADs (LERFADs) and non-entangling FADs (NEFADs) by fleets in three out of the four oceanic regions. This move is also supported by measures adopted by RFMOs like IATTC, ICCAT and IOTC, or conservation measures by ISSF (e.g. Conservation Measure 3.5.). The first reported voluntary tests with NEFADs in the WCPO by some private companies have started in 2017. The acceptance of biodegradable FADs to reduce marine pollution has risen in 2017 too, with important initiatives in the Indian Ocean with the project BIOFAD with the Spanish and French fleets and TUNACONs in the Eastern Pacific with the Ecuadorian fleet on the way. Best release practices from deck have also shown a rise in acceptance and a gradual but steady increase in their adoption. Other activities to release sharks in the net (e.g. fishing sharks in the net) received poorer acceptance due to associated difficulties such as lack of extra-crew for this activity and safety concerns. Regarding small bigeye and yellowfin tuna, fishers welcome technology for discrimination with multi-frequency echo-sounder buoys which could help identify species composition at FADs. Meanwhile, shorter tail FADs were not considered an effective option to reduce bigeye presence in sets, especially as FAD depth continues to increase in most oceans, because skippers considered that zone and time of the year are the most important factor for bigeye tuna presence in sets. Fishers also discussed alternative management options which could reduce FAD impacts such as FAD number limits, FAD closures or prohibiting the use of supply vessels.