The development of ACAP seabird bycatch indicators, data needs, methodological approaches and reporting requirements

WOLFAARDT, ANTON; DEBSKI, IGOR; MISIAK, WIESLAWA; WALKER, NATHAN; FAVERO, MARCO; WALKER, NATHAN

Victoria Mahe

Ronda de negocios; IOTC Working Party on Ecosystems and Bycatch (IOTC-2016-WPEB12-31); 2016

IOTC

The Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels (ACAP) is a multilateralenvironmental agreement that seeks to achieve and maintain a favourable conservation statusfor albatrosses and petrels. The Agreement is currently ratified by 13 countries. In addition, anumber of non-Party Range States actively participate in the work of the Agreement. TheAgreement provides a framework for coordinating and undertaking international activity tomitigate known threats to populations of affected species, including fisheries bycatch. In orderto monitor and report on the performance of the Agreement, a Pressure-State-Responseframework is being developed and implemented by ACAP. The primary Pressure indicator forbycatch comprises two linked components: i) the seabird bycatch rate across each of thefisheries of member Parties, and ii) the total number of birds killed (bycaught) per year ofACAP species (per species where possible). The Seabird Bycatch Working Group of ACAP iscurrently undertaking work to develop guidelines on issues that need to be considered inestimating and reporting against these bycatch indicators and, considering the estimationmethods currently in use, to propose guidance and recommendations to achieve consistentreporting. This paper provides an outline of the recommendations and guidelines that havebeen developed to date. It is important to note that this represents work in progress, and ispresented here to encourage linkages between the ACAP process and similar work beingundertaken within IOTC and other RFMOs.