Crucial in managing Pacific tuna stocks







Pacific tuna stocks are one of the region’s greatest resources, but managing them effectively requires detailed and accurate data.
Pacific Islands countries and territories (PICTs) also need this data to meet reporting requirements under international fisheries agreements, such as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Indeed, international fisheries agreements frequently emphasise the precautionary principle, which puts the onus on fisheries managers to demonstrate that the fishery can sustain proposed fishing limits and requires caution when there are insufficient data to demonstrate sustainability.
This principle provides considerable motivation for countries to collect good quality data. The same data that enable PICTs to fulfill their reporting obligations also make it possible to manage fisheries for long-term sustainability, which is recognised to be in everyone’s best interest.
Good data provide decision-makers with the tools they need to monitor fishery performance indicators (resource, economic returns, social impacts, etc.) and to quickly gauge the impact of current policies.
Because their range spans the entire region, tuna and other highly migratory species must be managed on a regional level. The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) provides one forum for regional management.
The Secretariat of the Pacific Community’s (SPC) Oceanic Fisheries Programme provides scientific services, including data management, to WCPFC and assistance to commission members.
SPC also implements WCPFC’s Regional Observer Programme, which trains observers and assigns them to fishing vessels to collect data first hand.
Every year SPC conducts a regional tuna data workshop to help its member countries improve their scientific tuna monitoring and data management capacity, and meet their data reporting obligations to WCPFC.
The workshop targets National Tuna Data Coordinators, who are the focal points for the coordination of tuna fishery data collection and management.
The Fourth Tuna Data Workshop was held at SPC headquarters in Noumea, New Caledonia, from 26 to 30 April 2010. The workshop focused on the preparation of 2009 annual tuna catch estimates, which were due for submission to WCPFC by 30 April 2010.
SPC assists PICTs to access and analyse their fisheries data, and provides additional data to help prepare these estimates.
The workshop also included a session on auditing tuna fisheries data collection systems. Like a financial audit, an audit of a tuna fishery data collection system consists of a formal examination of data and procedures to document the current strengths and weaknesses of systems used to collect and manage the data; encourage improvements; and eventually certify, or at least recognise, robust and reliable data systems.
After being introduced to the concepts behind auditing fisheries data, participants conducted an audit of a simulated port sampling programme using an audit workbook. The workbook can be used by an external auditor or to guide a self-audit.
The workshop reviewed current data-related issues in the region, including the consequences for member countries’ data collection systems of recent WCPFC decisions leading to the establishment of Conservation and Management Measures (CMMs).
In general, these measures require increased data collection both as an enforcement mechanism and to judge their effectiveness. For example, a 2009 CMM designed to protect sharks requires PICTs to report information about shark catches. The information must be broken down by species and gear type (purse-seine, longline, etc.). As a result, the forms filled out by regional observers have been revised. Another 2009 CMM designed to enhance stock assessments of highly migratory fish requires PICTs to report on trans-shipment of fish occurring in their exclusive economic zones or ports.
The workshop also included a session on the legal aspects of data collection and demonstrations of the latest tuna fishery database systems, which will be made available to member countries in the coming months.           

• For further information, contact the Secretariat of the Pacific Community: Peter Williams (peterw@spc.int) or Deirdre Brogan (Deirdreb@spc.int)