2012 - 2013 Centre for Environment, Fisheries & Aquaculture Science (Cefas) Scoping Industry Approaches to Fully Documented Fisheries 2012/13 - Fisheries Science Partnership

The proposed reform to the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) sets out a move to a land-all catch policy for EU fishing vessels, with a requirement for full reporting of fishing and onboard processing activity. Recent trials in several Member States for ‘Fully Documented Fisheries’ (FDFs) operating with catch quotas have demonstrated how Remote Electronic Monitoring (REM) technology can be utilised to deliver the monitoring requirements for FDFs. However, both the fishing industry and fisheries managers recognise that REM may not be suitable for all fisheries, so there is a need to evaluate REM alongside other approaches to documenting activity, such as observers, self-sampling and self-reporting reference fleets, so that each approach can be assessed in terms of its suitability and applicability to different fisheries. The main objective of this study was to explore the applicability of different technology and approaches to the full documentation of catch for various types of fishing. This includes exploring whether the technologies can deliver the information required, what practical considerations need to be taken into account, and what industry drivers and incentives are required to deliver fully documented catches. This information is required for the successful translation of the policy objective into practice. The project had the following four main objectives. To establish: ( 1.)What data are required to deliver fully documented fisheries ( 2.)What mechanisms are available to collect the data required for full documentation ( 3.)What are the relative merits of different approaches and technologies ( 4.)Whether different fishery characteristics might benefit from different FDF approaches.