Performance Assessment of Bycatch and Discards Governance by Regional Fisheries Management Organizations

Citation
Gilman, E., Passfield, K., Nakamura, K. (2012) Performance Assessment of Bycatch and Discards Governance by Regional Fisheries Management Organizations
Abstract

This performance assessment investigates the status, deficits and priorities for gradual improvements in RFMO bycatch governance. This was achieved by undertaking a performance assessment of governance of bycatch, including discards, by 13 RFMOs, regional bodies with the competence to establish conservation and management measures for marine capture fisheries, was conducted. Findings enabled the identification of priority gaps and provide the first comprehensive baseline against which to track future progress in filling identified bycatch governance deficits. RFMOs play a critical role in global fisheries governance. RFMOs provide a formal mechanism for fishing States and States in whose jurisdiction common-property fishery resources managed by an RFMO occur to pursue their agreement and implementation of measures to sustainably govern international fisheries. A large proportion of global marine fisheries and market species, and most of the high seas, are now covered by at least one RFMO.
Consistent with international guidelines on bycatch management, bycatch was defined broadly for this assessment as being comprised of: (i) retained catch of non-targeted but commercially valuable species; (ii) discard mortality, whether the reason for discarding is economic or regulatory, or results from vessel and gear characteristics; plus (iii) 'unobservable' mortalities, which are sources of fishing mortality that do not facilitate direct observation and are relatively difficult or not possible to estimate in the course of fishing operations.
Performance in governing bycatch was assessed against a suite of five broad criteria. These are (i) data collection for regionally observed fisheries (bycatch data collection protocols, observer coverage rates, and regional observer program dataset quality); (ii) open access to regional observer program datasets; (iii) ecological risk assessment; (iv) conservation and management measures to mitigate problematic bycatch of species relatively vulnerable to fisheries overexploitation due to their life history characteristics and susceptibility to mortality from fishing operations; adverse broad, indirect community-level effects from bycatch losses; ghost fishing mortality; and collateral mortality from discharges of catch, offal and spent bait at sea; and (v) surveillance and enforcement.
Furthermore this performance assessment discusses: the aim and objectives of governing bycatch, including discards; performance assessment findings; RFMO observer monitoring methods and data quality; observer program dataset open access; ecological risk assessment; binding control rules; and surveillance and enforcement.