Scientific Assessment and Monitoring

A report of the first Papua New Guinea Tuna Tagging Project cruise, carried out in Papua New Guinea during August to November 2006 is available.

The PNG Tagging Project is a joint research project being implemented by the Oceanic Fisheries Programme (OFP) of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) and the PNG National Fisheries Authority (NFA).

In October 2005, SPC's Oceanic Fisheries Programme, in collaboration with the Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA), started a five-year endeavor called the Pacific Islands Oceanic Fisheries Management Project (OFM project). The OFM project is funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and the Scientific Assessment and Monitoring Enhancement Component of the project (including ecosystem analysis) is implemented by SPC.

The Convention requires that the impacts of fishing on non-target and associated or dependent species, and ecosystem impacts in general, be considered when management measures are being developed for highly migratory fish stocks.Specifically, the Convention requires Parties to:

“assess the impacts of fishing, other human activities and environmental factors on target stocks, non-target species, and species belonging to the same ecosystem or dependent upon or associated with the target stocks”;

The Oceanic Fisheries Programme (OFP) of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) hosted a Stock Assessment Workshop (SAW) for fisheries officers from Pacific Island Countries and Territories, at SPC headquarters in Noumea, New Caledonia, 3rd–14th of July 2006. The report of the workshop is attached.

This information is to alert GEF focal point officers to the upcoming OFP-SPC Tuna Stock Assessment and Ecological Risk Assessment (ERA) Workshops to be run at SPC Headquarters (Noumea) in mid-2008. Invitations to these workshops have already been sent to specific fisheries officers, via Heads of Department in each country. Therefore this notice is purely “for information” and does not require any actions to be taken by its recipients.

SPC recently hosted a stock assessment workshop for fisheries officers from countries and territories within the Western and Central Pacific region. The workshop was one component within the larger Global Environment Facility (GEF) funded Oceanic Fisheries Management Project.

Nominations for fisheries officers from Pacific Island Countries and Territories to attend one of two stock assessment workshops (focused on Western and Central Pacific tuna fisheries) being run by SPC in 2007 are being sought.

The quality of stock assessment on major regional stocks has advanced rapidly in the last five years and there is an improving understanding of the overall impact of fishing on regional stocks. However, the national needs assessments showed a gap between the strength of this work at a regional level and, the level of understanding and use of stock assessment methods and results nationally.

The Pacific Islands Oceanic Project (GEF) was the main sponsor of the 2nd Tuna Data Workshop (TDW-2) which took place at the SPC headquarters from the 7^th to 11^th of April.Participants from 15 FFA member states, two French territories and the Philippines took part in the workshop.The main aim of the workshop was to acquaint the group with the best methods for preparing annual catch estimates and to share experiences of managing tuna data.