16 August 2017

The Common Oceans ABNJ Tuna Projects Fourth Project Steering Committee Meeting (PSC) took place on the 11-13 of July, gathering Steering Committee members and partners at FAO headquarters in Rome. Participants included the Project Management Unit (PMU), the Project Mid-term Evaluation (MTE) team and representatives from the secretariats of the GEF and four of the five tuna RFMOs IOTC, ICCAT, IATTC, and WCPFC (CCSBT was not able to attend).

Also participating were representatives from partners WWF, BirdLife South Africa, IMCSN, OPAGAC, ISSF, NOAA, OSPESCA, as well as governments of Fiji and Ghana joined by Laif Fisheries Ghana, and Solander (Pacific) Ltd Fiji, representing the fishing industry. Furthermore, representatives from partners in the Common Oceans Program:  World Bank, Conservation International, BOBP-IGO, as well as other projects such as the  Caribbean Billfish Project, Deep Seas Project and Capacity Project, also attended the meeting.

With Dr Alexandre Aires-da-Silva (IATTC) elected chair, Tuna Project Coordinator Alejandro Anganuzzi opened the three-day meeting with summary of highlights and progress made during the Project's third year of implementation. Next, presentations by partner organizations provided a thorough overview of recent activities carried out under the Project framework.

Progress and highlights included:

Strengthened governance and support of collaborative work of among the tuna RFMOs

• Continued support to capacity building workshops on harvest strategies in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Ghana, science-management dialogues, and the operationalization of the Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries  management (EAFM)
• Several joint tuna RFMO working groups and networks have been facilitated:
  • November 2016, a joint Tuna RFMO Management Strategy Evaluation (MSE) Working Group met to review current MSE practices. 
  • December 2016, a first joint meeting for scientists from tuna RFMOs, on the implementation of EAFM, held to discuss challenges and opportunities related to the concept.
  • March 2017, an inception workshop, to launch a tuna compliance network, held to exchange information and experiences on compliance.
  • April 2017, a first joint tuna RFMO FAD Working Group met to coordinate the work of t-RFMOs on FAD related issues.

Advances in strengthening and harmonizing Monitoring, Control and Surveillance (MCS)

• Continued efforts to document Best Practices (BPs) for Monitoring Control Surveillance (MCS) in tuna fisheries.
• FFA started a third round of its MCS course with 20 students from Cook Islands, Fiji, FSM, Kiribati, Nauru, Samoa, Tonga and Tuvalu registered at USP in 2016.
• Continued quality assurance of the consolidated global List of Authorized Vessels (CLAV) for the five t-RFMOs during the third year of implementation, five reports were disseminated to interested parties.
• A study on Design Options for the Development of Tuna Catch Documentation Schemes authored by Gilles Hosch was completed and distributed.
• Legislative template for implementation of port State measures, authored by Judith Swan, translated into French and Spanish by May 2017, and distributed widely .
• Pilot activities in Fiji (with Fiji Fisheries Department and FTBOA), and in Ghana, (with WWF, the Ghana Fisheries Commission and ISSF), and most recently in Seychelles (with SFA), to evaluate the best way to integrate Electronic Monitoring Systems (EMS) are well underway despite initial delays. Trainings for land-based observers to enable them to analyze the data captured by the cameras onboard fishing vessels. 

Continued progress on mitigation of ecosystem impacts

• All new, web-based, global Bycatch Management and Information System (BMIS) launched in May 2017 developed by the Pacific Community (SPC) and WCPFC.
• WCPFC, together with SPC and representatives from 21 countries and organizations completed an analysis of the largest compilation to date of Pacific sea turtle-longline fishery interactions.
• Improvement of shark data and assessments continues. The first of four assessments, of the Pacific-wide bigeye thresher shark, was completed in September 2016, and the second, of the southern hemisphere porbeagle shark will be completed by August 2017. A third assessment of the silky shark is to be completed in 2018, while the fourth is yet to be decided.
• ISSF and BirdLife International are promoting development and dissemination of mitigation techniques for bycatch of small tunas and sharks by tuna purse-seiners and incidental seabird mortality in tuna longline fleets.
• WWF Pakistan selected 75 crew observers to be trained and deputed on-board Pakistani tuna gillnet vessels to collect data and digital record through cameras. Observer coverage is now at 15%.
• IATTC developing new shark data collection forms for a shark database, jointly with OSPESCA, for sharks landed in the eastern Pacific Ocean, with focus on Central America.
• New IATTC Resolution C-16-06 on Conservation Measures for Shark Species, with emphasis on the Silky Shark, for the 2017, 2018, and 2019.

On the third and final day, the MTE team got the opportunity to present the mostly positive findings arising from their evaluation, followed by recommendations on how to improve the project further. Both the MTE team and project partners spoke positively about the experience. The partners and other participants also took advantage of the gathering to start discussing possible plans for extending the benefits of the Project for the future. The next PSC meeting is scheduled to take place in Rome on 16-18 July 2018. On a final note, members of the PSC approved the work plan and budget for project year 4. 

• Mr Alejandro Anganuzzi, Global Coordinator for the Common Oceans ABNJ Tuna Project | [email protected]