Biological information from commercial fisheries has traditionally been collected by technicians from fish at landing sites and from catch and effort data recorded in fishing logbooks. This data, particularly the catch and effort figures, is often less than accurate. More detailed and objective set by set information can be obtained by trained and independent observers stationed on board vessels during the actual fishing operation. Two Observer Programs were established in eastern Canada (Scotia-Fundy and Newfoundland Regions) in the late seventies with a combined scientific and enforcement mandate. By 1980 over half of the foreign activity was covered by observers and the programs were also extended to a portion of the domestic offshore fleet. The aim of these programs is to provide a system of observation and data collection to assist in the management of the fishery within the newly extended zones of jurisdiction and to provide a cost effective method of monitoring compliance of foreign and domestic fleets to current regulations.
Within the Canadian context the Observer Program was initially accepted by fisheries management mainly as a deterrence to foreign and domestic non-compliance. The observer became the “eyes and ears” for the department in determining how the large offshore fleets were exploiting their allocated resources. The inability of fisheries officers conducting at sea inspections to quantify problem areas such as incidental catches, discards or the retention of juvenile fish was recognized early on and further testified to the need for and value of the Observer Program. With these concerns in the foreground, the program operates with equal emphasis on both surveillance and scientific functions.
One of the major concerns of managers of fisheries by foreigners has been the validity of reported catches. It is extremely doubtful that managers would receive accurate reports of catches from foreign nations from non-monitored fisheries. It has been our experience that under-reporting is common practice and that even now, after years of persistent enforcement, discrepancies between real and reported catch can be as high as 20 to 25% for directed species, and from two to ten times higher for regulated by-catch species. In the absence of 100% coverage on foreign fleets, vessel catch reports are often adjusted based on the observer data, and fisheries have been closed, based on these pro-rated catch statistics. The use of observer data in this manner constitutes a real time control mechanism for managers charged with regulating foreign fisheries.
In many parts of the world the catching of certain species or size of fish is either discouraged or prohibited and Canada is no exception to this. Most foreign fisheries off our coast are regulated by incidental (or by-catch) limits of 1% or 10% for species that the vessel is not licenced to catch. Managers need to know the quantities of species that are taken incidentally and the areas and times they are taken. The purpose in collecting this data is to formulate, evaluate and adopt regulatory measures to reduce and control incidental catches.
The observer's scientific data collection responsibilities can vary depending on the fishery and type of vessel. In general, they are required to collect resource data used in establishing stock distribution patterns, provide catch and effort statistics and biological information for stock assessment, examine the effects of gear types on exploited fish stocks, record the associated by-catch and discard rates, collect information on fleet fishing patterns and collect detailed production data. The observer data set is now considered an important complement to research cruise data and port sampling data because it provides a source of information by area, time and species not often covered by the latter group. Length, age and catch per unit effort data, all collected by observers, are now used regularly in stock evaluation studies.
The observer does not have the legislative authority to enforce fishery regulations. This authority is vested in the fishery officer and considered not to be compatible with the observer mandate which is to observe, record and report. Nevertheless, the observer is fully trained in all aspects of fishery regulations and the detection of violations. It is often on the strength of his evidence that a fishery officer is able to proceed with enforcement action. Documentation prepared by observers has been the basis for legal action against captains for a variety of infractions including: failure to maintain and submit accurate catch records, dumping overboard of a portion of the catch, improper gear attachments, fishing within a closed area, fishing for unlicensed species, retention of prohibited species, exceeding by-catch limits, failure to avoid fixed or set gear by one half nautical mile and interference with an observer's ability to perform his duties. The efficiency of the fishery officer/patrol vessel surveillance platform in maintaining a credible level of compliance with the offshore fleet would be in jeopardy were it not for the information supplied by the observers.
The Observer Program has been one of the most successful fisheries programs in the management of foreign activity off eastern Canada. The program has been responsible for the collection of a wide variety of fishery data that have enforcement, management, biological and domestic fishery development uses.
Fisheries managers in developing countries, faced with the task of providing reliable assessments of resources, are often quickly confronted with insufficient data for the majority of stocks being exploited in the region. As pressures on the resources increase, the question of effective regulation of fishing effort, including quotas and total allowable catches, becomes of paramount importance.
In developing countries a recurring theme in the attempt to define a scientific basis for the management of resources is the inadequacy of fishing statistics. Generally, data on effort has been described as inadequate for the assessment of resources. As recently as 1980, problems with catch statistics in the CECAF region “concerned not so much availability and breakdown by large divisions, but rather quality, trustworthiness and breakdown by Exclusive Economic Zones” (Poinsard 1984). While catch and effort statistics are the basic scientific data on which to formulate management policies, improvement in their reliability will greatly depend on the level of control that coastal countries will be able to exert on the exploitation of resources and statistical sources.
Through the efforts of international organizations such as the FAO, the problem of the availability of statistics has largely been solved while the problem of reliability has persisted. This is because of the direct linkage between quality statistics and effective surveillance and control of foreign fisheries.
By the late seventies most if not all coastal states had extended their territorial, fishing, or economic zones to the 200 mile limit. The Third United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS III) was the forum in which the discussions on the extension of national jurisdiction took place and the outcome radically altered the approach to the problem of regulating fishing effort. Each country was now responsible for the level of effort it had authorized on the resources belonging to it and the limitation of fishing effort had to be carried out “within the framework of national management and development plans” (Poinsard 1984). Part V of UNCLOS III deals with the EEZ and two of the sections pertinent to this discussion are paraphrased below:
Article 61: The coastal state shall determine the total allowable catch of the living resources in its EEZ and shall ensure that the living resources are not endangered by over-exploitation through proper conservation and management measures. Such measures shall be designed to maintain or restore harvested populations to levels which can produce the maximum sustainable yield as qualified by relevant environmental and economic factors including the economic needs of the coastal state taking into account fishing patterns and the interdependence of stocks.
Article 62: The coastal state shall promote the objective of optimal utilization of the living resources by a) determining its capacity to harvest the allowable catches and b) where it does not have the capacity it shall give other states access to the surplus of the allowable catch. The coastal state may govern the activities of other states allowed access to the EEZ through regulations dealing with:
(1) licensing of fishermen, vessels and equipment,
(2) determining what species may be caught and fixing quotas,
(3) seasons and areas of fishing; types, sizes, and quantities of gear, and sizes and types of fishing vessels,
(4) the age and size of fish that may be caught, (5) specific information required of fishing vessels,
(6) the placement of observers on board fishing vessels,
(7) the landing of all or part of the catch in ports of the coastal state,
(8) terms and conditions relating to joint ventures or other co-operative arrangements, and
(9) the training of personnel and transfer of fisheries technology.
UNCLOS III gave coastal states jurisdiction over their exclusive zones. It also set up a framework of responsibilities to conserve and manage the living resources with the objective of preventing overexploitation and to promote optimal utilization of the resources. If the coastal state does not have the capacity to harvest the resources then they are obliged to allow access by foreign nations. As stated in Article 62, the coastal state has a broad range of powers to regulate the terms and conditions of the harvest including “the placement of observers on board fishing vessels”. The problem of controlling the fishing effort and the allocation of resources is now the keystone to fisheries management in coastal states.
The Canadian experience has proven that an observer program is one of the least costly and most effective solutions to achieving greater control of effort and improvement in the biological and statistcal data sets. While it should not be considered as a panacea for the problems facing fishery managers, it is the logical first step in tackling the issues, particularly in developing countries where the availability of complex surveillance and scientific systems are limited, but manpower resources are abundant. All that is required to start a program are a group of suitable people, pencils, paper and a set of instructions. It is wrong to think that it is possible to artificially induce sophistication in a management system without first starting at the basic level of collecting the raw data. This was how the Canadian Observer Programs began, and only over time, by dealing with more complicated problems and building on experience, did the Programs develop their present levels of expertise.
This manual is intended to serve as a template for establishing or enhancing existing observer programs. It is designed to provide the basic text for establishing the scientific parameters of observing, outlining the surveillance aspects of the job and serving as a comprehensive field reference. The extensive description of observer duties, responsibilities and activities has been placed in the context of the local work environment. While this approach will somewhat limit the applicability of this manual to conditions outside Canada, it serves to illustrate how this program has responded to the challenges it faces, and will hopefully stimulate the reader towards new ideas and different solutions as he adopts this manual to his own regional situation.
