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Book (series)Bycatch in longline fisheries for tuna and tuna-like species: a global review of status and mitigation measures 2014
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No results found.This publication is the third in a series on bycatch in global tuna fisheries. Dealing with longline fisheries, its scope is defined taxonomically to comprise only non-tuna and non-tuna-like species. The history of longline fishing illustrates the role of new technologies, the expansion of fishing grounds, and the operational characteristics of the fleets in shaping today’s fishery. More recently, management regulations, the price of oil, the cost of labour, and market demand have also exerted a n influence. No more than 23 percent of the tuna in each ocean is longline-caught. However, there may be up to 7 500 tuna longliners globally with almost 60 percent of them less than 24 m in length. Available data suggest that elasmobranch catches have fallen 14 percent since their peak in 2003. In longline fisheries, shark catch rates may be determined by bait type, soak time, hook shape, leader length and material, depth at which the hook is fished, and whether special gear is deployed to targ et sharks. Vulnerability to hooking, and resilience to haulback and handling, vary by species, size, area and fleet operational practices. Tuna regional fisheries management organizations (t-RFMOs) assess the status of shark populations but data limitations often hinder firm conclusions. There is little information on the implementation or effectiveness of finning bans and no-retention measures. Mitigation measures have been tested but results vary. Six of the seven species of sea turtles are th reatened with extinction, and while longline fisheries may have less impact than net-based fisheries, significant populationlevel impacts may be occurring in some regions. The greatest concern is associated with loggerhead–longline interactions in the Atlantic. Circle hooks and using finfish bait have proved effective mitigation techniques either by reducing hooking or hook swallowing. Other methods require further development. Interactions with pelagic longline fisheries kill 50 000–100 000 sea birds annually. Many of these species, particularly albatrosses, are threatened with extinction. Recent advances in tracking technologies have facilitated mapping of where interactions are most likely. The Western and Central Pacific contains more than 45 percent of the global total albatross and giant petrel breeding distributions. The most promising mitigation methods appear to be night setting, side-setting, line weighting and streamer lines, but further research is needed. All five t-RFMOs r equire use of one or more of these methods in areas that overlap albatross distributions. However, compliance data are limited and improved observer coverage is essential. Marine mammals’ interactions with longline fisheries are detrimental to the fishery but may be positive or negative for the mammals. Although it is often unclear which species are involved, pilot whale interactions in the western Atlantic and false killer whale interactions off Hawaii have triggered national mitigation plans. No t-RFMO has adopted management measures for marine mammal interactions. Research and testing of mitigation measures continue in order to ameliorate both marine mammal impacts and economic losses to industry from depredation. At least 650 species of other bony fishes may be caught in association with pelagic longline fisheries, e.g. dolphinfish, opah, oilfish, escolar and ocean sunfish. Some of these stocks are important as local food supplies. However, it is unclear whether these stocks or the ecosystem they help structure is at risk. More attention should focus on improving fishery statistics and initiating basic monitoring of these stocks’ status. The diversity of pelagic longline gear designs and fishing methods, the variety of habitats they are deployed in, the thousands of marine species they may interact with, v and the different mechanisms and behaviours that govern those interactions provide an array of topics to be addressed in any discussion of bycatch mitigation. Scientifi c and technical issues in mitigation including effects across taxa, effects of combinations of measures, economic and safety considerations, underlying biological mechanisms, handling and post-release mortality, and non-fishery impacts must all be addressed. In addition, it is also necessary to consider issues such as who takes the lead for ensuring mitigation is sufficient for the population as a whole, how to devise effective mitigation implementation strategies, and whether gear modification should be used in concert with more sweeping measures. -
MeetingProvision of scientific advice for the purpose of the implementation of the EUPOA sharks. Final Report. European Commission, Studies for Carrying out the Common Fisheries Policy (MARE/2010/11 - LOT 2) 2013
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No results found.The scope of the European Union Plan of Action for Sharks covers directed commercial, by-catch commercial, directed recreatiol, and by-catch recreatiol fishing of any chondrichthyans within European Union waters. It also includes any fisheries covered by current and potential agreements and partnerships between the European Union and third countries, as well as fisheries in the high seas and fisheries covered by RFMOs maging or issuing non-binding recommendations outside European Union waters. S cientific advice for the purpose of the magement of shark species in the high seas is carried out mainly via the Scientific Committees of the relevant Regiol Fisheries Magement Organisations (RFMO), as well as through specific projects by tiol institutes, and other research organisms. However, the level of knowledge concerning many shark populations in the high seas of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans is far from satisfactory. It is therefore necessary to identify gaps in the current know ledge of fisheries, biology and ecology of sharks that should be filled in order to support advice on sustaible magement of elasmobranches' fisheries and undertaking studies to fill those gaps. Therefore, the objective of this project is to obtain scientific advice for the purpose of implementing the EUPOA on sharks as regards the facilitation of monitoring fisheries and shark stock assessment on a species-specific level in the high seas. The study is focused on major elasmobranch species caught by both artisal and industrial large pelagic fisheries on the High Seas of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific area, which are currently monitored and potentially maged by respective Tu RFMOs. Specifically, firstly the study aims to collate and estimate historical fisheries data especially on species composition of catches, catches and effort, size frequencies in order to identify the gaps in the current availability of fishery statistics as well current knowledge biology and ecology of sharks tha t should be filled in order to support the scientific advice provided to RFMOs on sustaible magement of elasmobranch fisheries. And secondly, the project aims to review and prioritise the gaps identified to develop a research program to fill those gaps in support for the formulation of scientific advice for magement of sharks. The data and knowledge gaps identified through Phase I will allow focusing and prioritising the future research. From this summarisation of Phase I it will be clear as to what data is available for providing magement advice for shark species, and where gaps in the data render this task difficult. In a second step, recommendations for data collection improvements as well as research necessities and activities will be described. The data collected in Phase I of the project gives a complete picture of the current data availability of information about catch and effort, observer programs, size frequency information, biological information and fishery indicators that may support the assessment of major shark species in Tu RFMOs. In spite of the importance of shark catches by industrial fleets, they have traditiolly consisted of bycatch of commercial fisheries and sharks are most often discarded or finned. Therefore, most of the times, shark catches are not recorded, especially with the required level of resolution, and catches must be estimated by statistical procedures based on observer data, fishing effort and different covariates. Moreover, the informatio n recorded is not usually RFMO) databases. The information on shark bycatch is scarce and their estimates found in the literature are not homogenous which made the raising and/or estimates of ratios (by-catch/target catch) uncertain due to various assumptions made (e.g. conversion of the estimates in number of individuals into weight without any information on the mean size per species). In summary, the main difficulties and data gaps identified in the project can be described as follows: there is a lack of shark reporting in artisal and coastal fisheries; there is a lack of shark reporting in industrial fisheries and when is reported usually is not broken down by species; there is a lack of any size frequency data; there is a lack of regiol biological/ecological information for sharks; there are difficulties to access to the data both at RFMO level and at a country level; species misidentification which affect the collection of fishery statistics; low observer coverage for most of the fleets/areas; difficulties with the use of logbook data for shark assessment (misidentification, underreporting, change in targeting practice). The work carried out in first phase of the project focuses on the collection of fishery information publicly available, mainly in the website public domain of the RFMOs in the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic Ocean as well as in the Mediterranean Sea (ICCAT- GFCM, IOTC, IATTC, and WCPFC) but also on information available in the literature, most of which com es from documents presented at the scientific meetings or workshops of RFMOs. The RFMO data administrators were also contacted in order to obtain any additiol fishery statistics data. Similarly, information from flag states, and from EU- member states, was requested in order to improve the information available on discards levels, size frequencies and biological information. Apart from RFMO official statistics, and in order to get more accurate and altertive catch data, shark catch estimations f or the most recent period were appraised based on fleet specific ratios of shark catch over tu (or target) catches. This was done in a two step process, first a general ratio between shark catches over tu (target) catch was applied to estimate total shark catches for major fisheries and, then, the relative proportion by species in the catch was applied to estimate shark catches by species. Those ratios were obtained from the literature search and/or data from observer programs available in the R FMO or in the literature. This exercise allows identifying the fleets that could be mainly responsible for the catch of the main shark species included in the study based on the best assumption of the shark catch over target species catch ratios derived from the literature but also allows identifying the main impacted shark specis by fisheries in each areas as well as the main origin of underreporting. In the Atlantic and Pacific (east and west), the Longline fleet targeting sharks, swordfish an d/or tropical tus is the most important métier catching sharks; which contributes with 59 %, 86 % and 95 % to the total shark catches respectively. On the contrary, the picture in the Indian Ocean is different where gillnet (GN - sensu lato) are contributing with 61 % of the total shark catch in comparison to 18 % for longliners. In general, the species composition of the sharks in different métiers is similar in all Oceans as well as in the Mediterran Sea. For example, Longline (LL - sensu lato ) impacts mainly blueshark and shortfin mako and in a minor extend hammerhead, thresher, silky and oceanic whitetip sharks; whereas Gillnet (GN - sensu lato) are impacting mainly silky, thresher, Oceanic whitetip, and shortfin mako sharks. The catch of silky and oceanic whitetip shark for the longline fleet in the West Pacific is higher than other longline fleets of other Oceans because they are operating in more equatorial waters. Although, in all the Oceans, the contribution to the total catch of Purse seines is minor (maximum of 5 % of total catch in the West Pacific); the species composition of purse seines catch is clearly domited by silky and oceanic whitetip sharks. In all Oceans the main species impacted is blueshark with around 65-75 %, with the exception of the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean Sea, of the total shark catch. The contribution of the rest of the species can vary depending on the relative contribution of different fleets as well as the spatial distribution of the d ifferent fleets. However, in general the blueshark catch is then followed by shortfin mako, hammerhead, silky, thresher, Oceanic withetip shark. In the Indian Ocean, the blueshark contribution to total shark catch is around 35 % followed by silky shark (21 %), thresher (16 %), Oceanic whitetip (11 %), shortfin mako (10 %) and hammerheads (6 %). And in the Mediterrenean, blueshark contribution is around 50 % while other species make up the rest: thresher sharks (25 %), mako sharks (13.3 %), tope shark (6.1 %), rays (3.5 %), and porbeagle (1 %). The comparison between the declared value and the estimated value can be considered as a figure for undereporting. For example, it is worth mentioning that the total average amount of the investigated species estimated is 1.5, 13 and 7 times higher than the average amount declared in the Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean, respectively. However, as the estimation carried out in this alysis was based on ratio of shark catch over to tal target catch there is high uncertainty on fil estimations coming from different sources; such as métier classification, from target species quantities declared and from the shark/target catch ratio used to estimate the shark species investigated; which recommend to take these estimations with caution. It was not possible to apply this methodology to the Eastern and Western Pacific due to the lack of access to disaggretate tu/target species catches from the IATTC/WCPFC public databases. And t he data above should be considered in the light of the different species productivity and susceptibility of a given species to a giving métier. This is important to take into account because in some cases a minor catch of one species from all fleets, or one fleet in particular, can have a great impact if the species in question is more vulnerable showing low productivity and high susceptibility to the fleet(s). So, it is important to consider the results above in the framework of Ecological Risk Assessment (ERA) which can help to identify priorities for observer programs/research efforts. Filly, data gaps identified in relation to shark fishery statistics have been summarized with the aim to develop a research framework that would allow filling those gaps in order to assess and mage the shark population worldwide in a sustaible manner. The design of such programme is benefited and integrates all the information collected through phase I. For example, the data and knowledge gaps identif ied and listed/inventoried through Phase I allows focusing and prioritised the future research. From this summarisation of Phase I it is clear as to what data is available for providing magement advice for shark species, and where gaps in the data render this task difficult. At this stage, recommendations for data collection improvements as well as research necessities and activities are described. As such, the review of existing information; as well as the identification of information gaps, ma in shark species impacted and main métier responsible for major shark catch; presented above provides the basis for development of a research program and priorities for the assessment of the status of sharks in Tu RFMOs. As it is not possible to develop a research program for all the Tu RFMOs, a general framework to develop the research program in support of the scientific advice for shark magement is proposed; which includes: (1) a research framework to identify the main species and fleets that needs to be prioritized for the collection of fishery data and information in order to assure the assessment of principal shark species regiolly in the Tu RFMOs; (2) a general recommendations for all Tu RFMOs to improve the data collection to fill the gaps identified above; and (3) options for magement and mitigation measures for sharks. The research framework is proposed to be organized in three steps: (i) estimation of shark catches by species using the method proposed here which allows ident ifying the most impacted shark species and the métier most affecting those species; (ii) a prelimiry Ecological Risk Assessment (or other prelimiry assessment based on fishery indicators) by fleets which allows to identify the most vulnerable species to focus the efforts in conjunction with point (i); and (iii) specific recommendations of how to apply possible magement measures, to improve data collection and assessment of those fleets/species identified as priorities based on points (ii) and (i ii). The implementation of the three steps is highly related. The project also recommends actions to fill the identified gaps structured in sections as data collection, data reporting, data resolution, data access, and assessment. As the data collected through phase I give a complete picture of what are the main fleets targeting the more important shark species caught in the Tu RFMOs, both EU and other countries catching shark, as well as the extent of their volume; this exercise also helps to i dentify the different species for which more focus is needed and those that are supposed to be caught in a lesser extent. For example, this helps to focus the target or more important fleets to monitor and design specific representative observer schemes for those fleets as necessary. Having in mine the data gaps for major fisheries impacting pelagic sharks stocks in the different t-RFMOs Conventions areas as well as the most important metier catching sharks and most impacted shark species; the p roject proposes some possible solutions and recommendations for the implementation of observers programmes on those fisheries, aiming to improve shark data collection, mely regarding shark catch and discards: species composition; vessel mortality; size and sex data. Magement measures are essential when a given stock is seriously affected by the fishing activity and are aimed at limiting the impact of this activity. The election of a measure will depend on the stock status, on the behavior of the species, on the species being target or not, etc.; but the project summarizes several options of magement and mitigation measures applicable to shark species. -
DocumentPilot project to improve data collection for tuna, sharks and billfish from artisanal fisheries in the Indian Ocean 2013
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No results found.The Indian Ocean Tu Commission (IOTC), acknowledging the need for improved artisal fisheries reporting by the countries in the region, proposed a study to investigate the issues affecting these countries and possible solutions to the problems. This study concentrated on the capacity that countries in the Indian Ocean have to report artisal fishery catches on near-real time but recommendations were also made in some specific cases about semi-industrial and industrial fisheries if deficiencies wer e observed. Nine countries were visited and initial assessments made on their capacities to report catches from artisal fleets in near real-time. Speed of reporting and quality of data were investigated and recommendations made where appropriate. The countries visited capture over 87% of the total catch through coastal fisheries of the three species of interest (bigeye, yellowfin and skipjack tu) to the IOTC. Other countries were not visited for a variety of reasons. Pakistan and Yemen have impo rtant catches (6.7%) but could not be visited due to security concerns; Comoros has an IOTC- OFCF project in progress, and Oman has a good reporting system in place. The limitations of this study must be appreciated. Understanding the plethora of issues in such a short amount of time, sometimes as little as five days in a country, presents particular challenges that cannot be ignored. The amount of time spent and size of each country, complexities of the fisheries, people met, institutiol linkag es, politics, and other factors influenced the understanding of the issues by the consultant as well as the actions proposed. Much of the information collected may not be considered factual but anecdotal as on many occasions people from the same or different organizations contradicted each other and it was not always possible to verify the accuracy of their claims. In addition, the lack of consistency on how data are gathered in the same country shows that the region is a long way from having co nsistent methodologies in place. Although many artisal fisheries do not target tu due to limitations in the vessels the changes proposed here apply not only to tus, sharks and billfishes but also to the rest of species as the issues encountered with experimental design, sampling and reporting are pervasive and common to all fisheries. The objectives of the mission were 1. to meet with relevant officials including the Chief of Statistics, personnel responsible for aggregation and handling of fish eries data, and representatives at the provincial and district levels; 2. to visit various ports to determine the flow of information and possible areas for improvement; 3. to describe the issues affecting the timely report of artisal fishery data and investigation of possible solutions, implementation and costs; and 4. to recommend on data collection and magement activities that would make possible close to real-time reporting of data from artisal fisheries including implementation of pilot sam pling activities and strengthening of existing data collection and magement systems. These activities aimed to answer the question posed by the Commission on whether countries in the region, as a whole, have the capacity to report accurate catches in near-real time The short answer to the question made by the Commission is an unequivocal no. There are many issues affecting the capacity of these countries to produce not only reliable but timely statistics and in this document these concerns are a ddressed individually in the country reports. This does not mean, however, that there are no countries that with small changes and a dose of political will could report significantly improved statistics in the time frame proposed. Some of the countries visited could have reduced timelines and improved statistics if collection of fisheries data were given the priority it deserves. At this time, however, the great majority of countries cannot, or do not report, their catches discrimited by species , gear and month in the proposed timeframe of one to two weeks after the end of each month. It is necessary for IOTC to define artisal vessels as the temporary definition used in this study includes boats from semi industrial and industrial fleets. Because of the diversity and complexity of fishing fleets found throughout the region, neither size nor any other single characteristic will be sufficient to describe an artisal vessel. The definition will have to be based on a series of criteria (e.g . fulfilling three out of five characteristics that may include gear used, size of boat, size of motor, autonomy, type of storage, etc). The fleets encountered in many countries show a range of interchangeable fishing techniques, capacity to fish close or far to shore, capabilities to stay from a few to many days away from port and other characteristics that are usually associated with more developed fleets. Even if a definition by IOTC exists, countries need to define their fisheries magement u nits to clearly separate artisal, semi industrial and industrial components to avoid aggregation of vessels that may use similar gear but have different capacities (e.g. sizes, autonomy, etc) and therefore different catches. Contracting and Cooperating Non-contracting Parties (CPCs) in the region have the obligation to fulfil the requirements set by the Commission. At this time near-real time reporting is not one of them but countries should evaluate their needs and consider the suggestions give n here to improve their reporting systems. To successfully implement any activities to improve reporting systems, it will be necessary for the countries to critically assess the possibilities that they have to continue the work once support, fincial and logistical, is suspended regardless if the support is exterl or in-country. It is not very useful to realize improvements if the proposed activities are discontinued soon after support stops because the responsible departments do not assign the p riority, funds or capacity to maintain them. Ideally, these changes should be incorporated into existing structures and given the importance needed to ensure procedural continuity and high quality of data. A common problem through the region is the aggregation of species under a common label (e.g. sharks). Substantial amounts of money and time have been spent on the design, compilation and production of identification guides (e.g. FAO in Tanzania and Kenya) but they have serious shortcomings as they present one or two species from groups such as tu, a resolution that leaves much to be desired. For fisheries magement purposes, data must be collected with species resolution and these guides fall short of their intended objective. A possible replacement to printed guides is the use of electronic tablets that can be used for identification purposes as well as for data collection. The use of this technology would resolve the most common problem encountered in this mission, that of considera ble delays in report production due to hold ups in entry of data. The costs of said tablets and the development of the software in most cases would be less or comparable to the cost of purchasing laptops and other computers, photocopying forms, and mailing these to the various centres. Furthermore, the use of tablets would allow for remote supervision, thus reducing the need for on-site monitoring, as many of these tablets have GPS or other methods to determine position that allow for immediate localization and monitoring of personnel in the field. This technology, however, may not be appropriate to all countries visited, as it would need reliable Internet connection and technical support. It would be possible for countries like India and Sri Lanka to start using this technology as they have already expressed interest in its use and would address the issues presented above which are relevant to these countries. The countries visited exhibited a wide range of fisheries, gears, species, and of course issues thus they are presented individually in the country reports although general comments follow to highlight the most important findings and recommendations. India possesses one of the most complex fisheries in the region because of its size, large number of boats and people. In addition, the large numbers of landing sites make this country a challenge to sample. Nonetheless, there is infrastructure and institutiol capacity to address these concerns. The Central Marine Fisherie s Research Institute gathers data in far more detail than the State Unions and at this time harmonization of techniques and sampling by the two groups is taking place. There is no direct weighing of the catch but estimates are made visually. It is proposed that validation of this technique is done frequently to ensure the reliability of the estimates. Although there is stratified random sampling in place, it is suspected that there is substantial underestimation of the catches. There is an urgen t need to revise the stratification to allocate more sampling time to major ports. Manpower, however, is the most important issue as there are only 80 enumerators to cover 8,118 km of coastline where 1,896 ports and landing sites and 3,937 fishing villages are found. Increased sampling coverage and effort are proposed as the critical issue in India. Indonesia is one of the countries of high interest due to its geographically extensive fishery and to the large volume of fish caught. It is here pr oposed that with minor modifications to its port sampling and reporting procedures, Indonesia can report its artisal catches on time and reliably. Some of these changes include improved identification and classification of species, harmonization of datasheets throughout the various districts in the country, and reduced aggregation of data as they are passed along the chain of reporting. Although there are issues with the Indonesian fishery reporting system, there are no indications to suggest th at large underreporting is taking place. There are problems with identification of species and underreporting, not so much from omission of data as for mishandling of information. In some cases tu weights are reported from processed (gilled and gutted) animals and these weights are not converted to live weight. Although it is likely that there is some underreporting due to the size of the country and the complexity of the fishery, it appears that most of the catch is reported, albeit partly iden tified incorrectly. One of the main issues of concern in Indonesia is the catch of large numbers of small bigeye and yellowfin tu associated to “rumpons”, i.e. anchored Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs). Their monitoring is proposed as a priority. Iran is home to one of the largest fleets of gillnet vessels in the Indian Ocean and currently has the best reporting system for total retained catch sampled in port of the countries visited. Large numbers of these vessels have the capacity to fish offsh ore and there is an urgent need to separate the coastal or EEZ fleet from that one that fishes on the high seas. The system in Iran covers effectively the effort (trips) for fishing vessels in its EEZ as this is mandatory and strictly enforced, but there is the need to improve the logbook system for vessels fishing on the high seas. Enumerators interview about 10% of the fleet but the same vessels are always sampled and this could be a source of bias that needs to be addressed. In addition, info rmation on gear configuration is needed to be able to standardise the effort per fishing event, something missing at this time. An important issue for the fleet fishing in this country may be bycatch of turtles, marine mammals and birds, and this will only be address accurately with observers on board the vessels. Kenya has a small fishery for tu, sharks and billfish. Although there is basic infrastructure and personnel in place, there is a need to improve the reporting system substantially, som ething already in development by the Fisheries Department in the country, with the creation of a new sampling protocol, datasheets and database. It is necessary to have dedicated enumerators (at this time personnel work on many tasks and sampling is sporadic) and basic equipment including hardware and software. The recreatiol fishery is effectively covered and there is a working database in use that houses a large dataset although it presents problems in specimen weights as these are estimated. Madagascar’s sampling and statistics infrastructure needs a complete overhaul. This will require massive amounts of money, time and expertise, assets that would be, in this consultant’s opinion, misplaced if we consider IOTC’s interests. Furthermore, the total catches of the species of interest, except sharks, are thought to be very low. It is very likely that the foreign fleet present in the Malagasy Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) catches most of the tu and sharks in the country. A small longlin e fleet targets bigeye and yellowfin but the catches are relatively small and the operators appear to record their catches in detail although it is unknown what the relevant authorities do with the information. The reporting of this component needs to improve to take advantage of the detailed information collected by operators. The main concern for Madagascar’s fishery is the large number of sharks caught which in many cases may go unreported. Investigation of the unreported shark catch and how to measure it is here proposed as a priority for this country. The tu fishery in Maldives is simpler than in other countries in the region. The main gear is pole and line although handlines and trolling are also used and there are plans to introduce longline. The main species caught are skipjack and yellowfin, the latter mainly for export. There are very good records of number of individuals caught and their weights for exported fish but the same cannot be said for fish that stay for local consu mption. The large number of islands and their relative isolation make it challenging to sample and monitor the fleet. An increase in effort in the various ports and landing sites and a revision of the sampling strategy are priorities for Maldives. In addition, there is mislabelling of bigeye (called yellowfin) although the numbers are low compared to the other species. Mozambique possesses one of the best data collection systems encountered. Although the artisal fleet catches small quantities of tu, the system and the personnel in place gather data with sufficient detail about gears, species and effort to allow for detailed alysis. There are reporting problems, however, as the institutiol obligations are not clear and Mozambique does not report its artisal catches to the IOTC. The semi industrial fleet, also included here because of the IOTC definition, does not have a comparable system as catch data are collected from logbooks without verification. Furthermore, concerns exist on under reporting from this and the foreign industrial fleet fishing in its EEZ. Sri Lanka’s fishery, even if similar to India’s because both are multi-gear, multi-species, is not as complex because the country does not land as much fish in as many landing places with as many gears. The harbours visited are relatively well organized and seem fairly easy to sample. As in India, the main problem is shortage of enumerators and the fact that two institutions sample for landings with different methodologies. This leads to duplication of work and it is proposed here that one institution conducts the sampling. Although there is stratified random sampling, sampling effort is not sufficient and there is a need to cover the landing sites more intensively and extensively. Collaboration between the two institutions responsible for fisheries data collection and reporting will improve the data gathering efforts in Sri Lanka. Tanzania (mainland and Zanzibar), like Kenya, has experienced marked changes in its tu fishery. Most vessels fishing for tu were from foreign fleets but they have moved away from the area due to piracy threats in this part of the Indian Ocean. Extremely small catches of tu, billfish and sharks are reported from the artisal fleet because the boats are basic and this forces them to remain very close to shore where tu species are not found in abundance. In most cases, data from artisal fisheries (within 12 nm from shore) are collected by Beach Magement Units (BMUs) who then pass the information to their respective fisheries department for collation and production of statistics. Further training of the BMUS was identified as a priority for Tanzania. The countries that need the most urgent intervention on their current sampling and reporting methodologies are India (tus and sharks), Indonesia (tus and sharks), Madagascar (sharks), Maldives (tus) and Sri Lanka (tus and sharks). These are the countries with the highest catches of tus and sharks that currently present issues with their data collection and reporting structure. In addition to the fisheries covered in this report, there are others that are industrial and which are not monitored or reported adequately. This includes the longline fishery of India and Indonesia, gillnet in Iran, and both fishing arts by the fleet from Sri Lanka. Although logbook systems are sometimes in place, the reporting from these fleets is sporadic at best and needs substantial improvement. At present, most of these fleets would not be able to report data in near-real time as proposed by the IOTC. Even though port sampling should register most of the species caught, there are species that are discarded for a variety of reasons. Furthermore, some fleets are semi-industrial or industrial because the boats are larger than 24m or they fish outside their EEZ, but the required coverage of 5 % of fishing events is not being met and they should be monitored more closely, thus the need to implement an observer programme as required by the IOTC. This is not feasible in many of the countries due to the small size of the vessels but monitoring at sea may be possible from patrol vessels where the observer does not need to spend more than a short amount of time on a boat to document the complete catch. Fishers in the countries visited may keep all of the catch (e.g. India) or in some cases may get rid of certain bycatch species because it is illegal to possess them (e.g. sharks in Maldives) or because they have no commercial v alue (e.g. birds) but this is difficult to verify. Thus it is important to ensure that observer programmes are implemented where possible to guarantee that all species caught, and their fates, are recorded and included in regiol statistics. Many programmes have been carried out in countries in the region to support the development of fisheries magement but few, if any, have taken root and become an integral part of the way countries collect, process and utilize information. When support is given it must be clearly defined and the commitment to sustain and develop their monitoring and sampling must be secured from the receiving countries as part of this effort. It is common practice that after the period of support ends, initiatives and projects grind to a halt because of lack of funds, shifting priorities within ministries or departments, or lack of political will to continue. This model clearly does not work and the result is the loss of massive amounts of money, time and effort from aid agencies and RFMOs, therefore an altertive is needed. Collaboration with the fishing community in data gathering activities may be a possibility for some of the countries in the region such as Tanzania, but for countries with large and complex fisheries this model is not workable. In this case, governmental support in funds, personnel and infrastructure is the only way in which countries will have an independent, reliable and workable fisheries framework. The changes proposed in the country reports are applicable not only to tu, billfish and shark fisheries, but they are measures to improve reporting systems as a whole, changes that are sorely needed for the magement of all species. The key to the success of any initiative will be political commitment from the concerned countries and the need to realize the importance of fisheries magement to the stability of the fishing industry and food security, and preservation of the resources.
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