USE OF DATA SETS FROM THE COORDINATING WORKING PARTY ON FISHERY STATISTICS

41. The Coordinating Working Party on Fishery Statistics (CWP) was established in 1959-60, with origins in the North Atlantic area. The CWP has evolved over time, and now has a global mandate. The group is comprised of fisheries management, advisory and scientific bodies, with the FAO functioning as secretariat. The mandates of the CWP are to:

a) keep under continuous review the requirements for fisheries (including aquaculture) statistics for the purposes of research, policy making and management taking into account, inter alia, their purpose usefulness, costs, burden in collection and collation, timeliness, quality, confidentiality needs and regional differences;

b) develop and agree standard concepts, definitions, classifications and methodologies for the collection and collation of statistics; and

c) make proposals and recommendations for action in relation to the collection and collation and dissemination of fishery statistics recognising the need to coordinate activities so as to avoid duplication.

42. The CWP^[4] has produced a Handbook of Fisheries Statistical Standards which presents harmonized definitions and classifications developed over many years. These include, inter alia, different catch concepts, catch nationality, logbooks, conversion factors and fisheries commodities classifications.

43. Of particular interest to MCS, the CWP has developed or recommended upon:

a) country or area codes (3-alpha ISO code);

b) inter-agency 3-alpha code to report statistics by species items^[5] and groups of aquatic animals and plants (ISSCAAP);

c) fishing gears (ISSCFG);

d) major fishing areas for statistical purposes;

e) fishing vessels, through the International Standard Statistical Classification of Fishery Vessels (ISSCFV); and

f) commodities, through the International Standard Statistical Classification of Fishery Commodities (ISSCFC).

44. The Consultation recognized the significant progress made in the area of data format standardization by the CWP, and noted that, with assistance from the FAO, CWP members could enhance the usefulness of the CWP to fisheries MCS by:

a) recommending field codes and data formats or database interchange formats for fishing vessel databases, to facilitate the crosschecking of vessel records in such databases;

b) recommending standards for international communication of information on fishing vessel authorizations; and

c) adopting the United Nations Code for Trade and Transport Locations^[6] (UN-LOCODE) as a standard for identification of fishing ports in fisheries-related databases and international exchange of fisheries data; and

d) recommending definitions for major violations and codes for the international exchange of information on major violations.

45. The experts were of the understanding that there appeared to be no formal procedure for establishing international standards for fisheries data and were of the view that FAO, through the CWP, could propose a formal procedure to propose, review and recommend upon such standards as may be required. The procedures used by other international bodies such as ISO may provide a suitable model.