Conservation and Management Measures (Advanced Search)

In cases where coastal CPCs allow foreign-flagged vessels to fish in waters in their EEZ in the IOTC Area for species managed by IOTC through a Government to Government access agreement, CPCs involved in the referred agreement shall submit jointly to the IOTC Executive Secretary the information concerning these agreements, including:

a) The CPCs involved in the agreement;
b) The time period or periods covered by the agreement;
c) The number of vessels and gear types authorised;
d) The stock or species authorised for harvest, including any applicable catch limits;
e) The CPC’s quota or catch limit to which the catch will be applied, where applicable;
f) Monitoring, control, and surveillance measures required by the flag CPC and coastal CPC involved;
g) Data reporting obligations stipulated in the agreement, including those between the parties involved, as well as those regarding information that must be provided to the Commission;
h) A copy of the written agreement.

When an access agreement is modified in a manner that changes any of the information specified in paragraph 3, these changes shall be promptly notified to the IOTC Executive Secretary.

All CPCs which issue licenses to foreign flag vessels to fish in their EEZs for species managed by the IOTC in the IOTC Area, under a private access agreement or under a government to government access agreement, shall submit to the IOTC Executive Secretary within two (2) months of the entry into force of this Resolution a template of the official coastal State fishing License and translated version in one of the official Languages of the IOTC, with:

a) The terms and conditions of the coastal State fishing license;
b) The name of the Competent Authority;
c) The name and contact of the personnel of the Competent Authority;
d) The signature of the personnel of the Competent Authority;
e) The official stamp(s) of the Competent Authority.

The IOTC Executive Secretary shall publish the template of the coastal State fishing license and the above information in a secure part of the IOTC website for MCS purposes. The information mentioned in sub-paragraph b) to e) must be provided in the form of the Annex I.

The IOTC Secretariat shall report the information specified in this Resolution annually to the Commission at its annual meeting.

In support of the scientific advice made available by the IOTC Scientific Committee, the 'Executive Summaries' within the annual IOTC Scientific Committee report which present stock assessment results, include when possible:

Stock status

a) A Kobe plot/chart showing:

i. Any Target and Limit Reference Points adopted by the Commission, e.g. FMSY and FLIM, SBMSY and SBLIM or BMSY and BLIM, depending on the assessment models used by the Scientific Committee, or proxies where available;
ii. The stock estimates, expressed in reference to Target Reference Points adopted by the Commission, e.g. as FCURRENT on FMSY and as SBCURRENT on SBMSY or as BCURRENT on BMSY;
iii. The estimated uncertainty around estimates, provided that statistical methods to do so have been agreed upon the Scientific Committee and that sufficient data exist;
iv. The stock status trajectory.

b) A graphical representation showing the proportion of model outputs of the  years used for advice from the last stock assessment that are within the green quadrant of the Kobe plot/chart (not overfished, not subject to overfishing), the yellow and orange quadrants (overfished or subject to overfishing) and the red quadrant (overfished and subject to overfishing).

Model outlooks

c) Two Kobe II strategy matrices:

i. A first one indicating the probability of complying with the Target Reference Points adopted by the Commission, e.g. the probability of either SB>SBMSY or B>BMSY and of F<FMSY for different levels of catch across multiple years;
ii. A second one indicating the probability of being inside safe biological limits expressed through Limit Reference Points adopted by the Commission, e.g. the probability of either SB>SBLIM or B>BLIM and of F<FLIM for different levels of catch across multiple years;
iii. When the Commission agrees on acceptable probability levels associated with the target and limit reference points on a stock by stock basis, the Scientific Committee could prepare and include, in the annual report, the Kobe II strategy matrices using colour coding corresponding to these thresholds.

Data quality and limitations of the assessment models

d) A statement qualifying the quality, the reliability and where relevant the representativeness of input data to stock assessments, such as, but not limited to:

i. Fisheries statistics and fisheries indicators (e.g. catch and effort, catch-at size and catch at age matrices by sex and, when applicable, fisheries dependent indices of abundance);
ii. Biological information (e.g. growth parameters, natural mortality, maturity and fecundity, migration patterns and stock structure, fisheries independent indices of abundance);
iii. Complementary information (e.g. consistencies among available abundance indices, influence of the environmental factors on the dynamic of the stock, changes in fishing effort distribution, selectivity and fishing power, changes in target species).

e) A statement qualifying the limits of the assessment model with respect to the type and the quality of the input data and expressing the possible biases in the assessment results associated with uncertainties of the input data;
f) A statement concerning the reliability of the projections carried out over the long term.

The Commission encourages the IOTC Scientific Committee to include either in its annual report or in the detailed reports, where possible and if considered as relevant and useful, any other tables and/or graphics supporting scientific advice and management recommendations. In particular, the IOTC Scientific Committee will include, where possible, information on the recruitment trajectories, on the stock-recruitment relationship and some ratio such as yield per recruit or biomass per recruit.

Each flag CPC shall ensure that all purse seine, longline, gillnet, pole and line, handline and trolling fishing vessels flying its flag and authorised to fish species managed by IOTC be subject to a data recording system.

All vessels shall keep a bound paper or electronic logbook to record data that includes, as a minimum requirement, the information and data in the logbook set forth in Annex I, II and III.

Where the logbook is not in one of the two languages of the IOTC, CPCs shall provide a complete field description of the logbook in one of the two languages of the IOTC together with the submission of the sample of the logbook. The IOTC Executive Secretary shall publish the sample of the logbook and the field description on the IOTC website.