Analysis and Synthesis of Data

68. The meeting was of common view of the critical need to bring together (available) data on fishing operations to enable assessment of stock status and stock productivity - essential for the conservation of the stocks. It was agreed that there would be a need for species-specific management protocols. In this regard most concern was expressed about operations of vessels that had been chartered from countries that did not insist on provision of data relating to the operations of their vessels in high sea fisheries. This concern had arisen in part because of charters arranged by operators who had previously worked as skippers in the fishery.

69. It was agreed that it would be constructive to establish a vessel list that provided the best possible information on which vessels had been fishing in the study area. This should facilitate securing information about fishing operations, in particular those relating to vessels not bound by any national reporting requirements for operations on the high seas. It was agreed that the FAO^[5] should facilitate this process by circulating it to any who could contribute information and maintain the current copy of the list. It was noted that Mauritius kept good records of those vessels that discharged fish products and that these records ought to be one source of information. Other ports that should be checked would include Durban^[6], Maputo, Victoria and Singapore^[7].

70. It was agreed that FAO would undertake a circular process to determine what level of data disaggregation confidentiality requirements would become a factor in relation to the requirement to aggregate data to satisfy confidentiality requirements at the national level. In this way, the maximum level of disaggregation could be determined, and the data tabulated accordingly. It was agreed that countries would be consulted on an individual basis before any publication of catch results.

71. New Zealand noted that their legal requirements controlled how it could provide data, especially in situations where no Commission existed that was responsible for the management of the stocks.

72. The meeting returned to earlier discussions (of the first ad hoc meeting) regarding measurement of fishing effort as a precursor to estimating catch per unit effort. The practice of using number of tows was again endorsed, at least in the case of fisheries targeting orange roughy. For this, information was needed on the number of vessels operating and the number of tows they made. However, it was reported that a common industry practice was that of undertaking 'decoy' tows (i.e. tows aimed at misleading other operators about the position of fish marks), and that care would be needed in interpreting such data. While it was recognized that other factors, particularly skipper experience would be important, it would be most difficult to account for them in standardizing fishing effort.

73. Given the potential problems inherent in CPUE measures, scepticism was expressed about the benefits of such management indicators to estimate biomass. However, it was agreed that such data should provide useful indications of changes in stock sizes, especially over time.

74. In a review of Australian industry's marine observer practice, it was noted that they collected the following information:

In this regard it was agreed that it would be useful to circulate the different national marine observer protocols though it was noted that the Namibian, Australian and New Zealand practices were similar.