Cold-water corals and deep-sea sponges by-catch mitigation: Dealing with groundfish survey data in the management of the northwest Atlantic Ocean high seas fisheries

Abstract

The integration of survey data in the processes of the Regional Fisheries Management Organisations is a key step for conservation of deep-sea ecosystems and sustainable exploitation of deep-sea fisheries resources, including the mitigation of by-catch and discards of cold-water corals and deep-sea sponges, both considered by FAO as vulnerable marine ecosystems (VMEs) indicator species. Information on corals and sponges from annual bottom trawl groundfish surveys in areas beyond national jurisdictions has been integrated into the "ecosystem management cycle" of the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO). Survey data have improved our knowledge on VMEs identification, distribution and extent, and has led to the proposal and implementation of conservation and management measures. These data have particular relevance to delineate and refine the boundaries of areas closed to commercial bottom fishing (14 closures), in order to prevent significant adverse impacts on VMEs, according to the mandate of United Nations General Assembly Resolution 61/105. Considering the European groundfish surveys in the NAFO Regulatory Area (high seas) as a case study, the paper presents an overview of how invertebrate catch data have been integrated into the fisheries management process as a basis to the implementation of VMEs closed areas. Fishing closures are considered effective spatial management measures to avoid by-catch and discards of cold-water corals and deep-sea sponges in commercial bottom fishing, mitigating the adverse impacts on deep-sea ecosystems.

Can government subsidy promote the light-blue fishery upgrade to deep-blue fishery?

“…Todorovićet al introduced a classification of seven prospective ecoregions within the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas convention area (Todorovićet al, 2019). Durań Muñoz et al surveyed a European groundfish within the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization high seas regulatory area (Durań Muñoz et al, 2020). In contrast, this paper examines the issue of subsidy policy in deep-blue fishery based on a single country perspective.…”

“…Scholars have studied the deep-blue fishery in the Pacific Ocean (Georgian et al, 2019;Dıáz-Delgado et al, 2021;Langseth and Glover, 2021) or in the Indian Ocean (Wakefield et al, 2020;Dimarchopoulou et al, 2021). In addition, there are also studies that have researched the resources management of deep-blue fishery in the Atlantic Ocean (Todorovićet al, 2019;Durań Muñoz et al, 2020;Syddall et al, 2021). Third, scholars analyzed the issue of deep-blue fishery in the Arctic Polar (van Pelt et al, 2017;Vylegzhanin et al, 2020;Yu et al, 2023a).…”

Vulnerable, but Still Poorly Known, Marine Ecosystems: How to Make Distribution Models More Relevant and Impactful for Conservation and Management of VMEs?

“…What we do know about the location of VMEs typically derives from when VME indicator taxa are caught as a bycatch in fisheries gear (Ardron et al, 2014;Lauria et al, 2017;Carbonara et al, 2020;Blicher and Arboe, 2021) or, to a lesser extent when they are captured by scientific surveys (Dautova et al, 2019;Du Preez et al, 2020;Durań Muñoz et al, 2020;Long et al, 2020;Salinas-de-Leoń et al, 2020). Because the former is destructive and has a limited sampling ability (Watling and Auster, 2017) and the latter is very expensive, these techniques are not suitable to be used at large spatial scales.…”