Report of the IWC Workshop on Bycatch Mitigation Opportunities in the Western Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea, 8-9 May 2019

The International Whaling Commission (IWC) held a technical workshop on Bycatch Mitigation Opportunities in the Western Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea from 8-9 May 2019 in Nairobi, Kenya. The workshop was attended by 50 participants working in 17 different countries, with half of the participants coming from within the Indian Ocean region. Workshop participants included national government officials working in marine conservation and fisheries management, cetacean and fisheries researchers, fisheries technologists, socio-economists and representatives from Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (RFMOs), inter- and non-governmental organisations. The focal region of the workshop extended from South Africa, north to the Arabian Sea and east to Sri Lanka, including coastal areas, national waters and high seas. The primary objectives of the workshop were to (i) develop a broad-scale picture of cetacean bycatch across the North and Western Indian Ocean region in both artisanal and commercial fisheries; (ii) explore the challenges and opportunities related to the monitoring and mitigation of cetacean bycatch in the western and northern Indian Ocean (Arabian Sea); (iii) identify key gaps in knowledge and capacity within the region and tools needed address these gaps; (iv) introduce the Bycatch Mitigation Initiative (BMI) to Indian Ocean stakeholders and assess how the initiative can be of use; (v) identify potential locations which could serve as BMI pilot projects; (vi) start building collaborations to tackle bycatch at national, regional and international level.
Presentations included the status of bycatch knowledge at the Indian Ocean scale and current tools available to assess, monitor and tackle cetacean bycatch. A panel discussion and breakout group sessions allowed for more in-depth discussion of the knowledge, gaps and challenges to addressing bycatch shared across the region. Priority areas where cetacean bycatch is known to be occurring – or considered likely to be occurring - were identified across the region (see summary map below).

The workshop recognised that bycatch is one of the most significant threats to cetacean species and populations in the Indian Ocean region and concluded that there was an urgent need to raise awareness of cetacean bycatch at local, national, regional and international scales. The best available information suggests that very high numbers of animals are caught in medium-scale tuna gillnet fisheries in the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea region. Furthermore, despite the general lack of data on cetacean bycatch regionally, it is likely that high numbers of cetaceans, including vulnerable species and populations, are caught in the extensive coastal artisanal and small-scale fisheries (net, trap and line) across the region. The workshop concluded that within the Indian Ocean region there was a need to focus on gillnets (set and drifting) as the fishing gear most likely to be causing the highest and most significant bycatch of cetaceans, and for which few effective solutions currently exist.

It was recognised that cetacean bycatch is generally very poorly documented in the region and that this presents a major barrier to understanding the scale of the issue and making progress towards bycatch reduction. The workshop concluded that a more systematic assessment of bycatch information is critical, particularly for small-scale and medium-scale fisheries.