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The Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC),
RECALLING the commitment made by Contracting Parties under Article V of the IOTC Agreement to keep under review the conditions and trends of the stocks and to gather, analyse and disseminate scientific information, catch and effort statistics and other data relevant to the conservation and management of the stocks and to fisheries based on the stocks covered by the Agreement;
CONSIDERING the provisions set forth in Resolution 15/02 On mandatory statistical reporting requirements for IOTC Contracting Parties and Cooperating Non-Contracting Parties (CPCs) (or any subsequent superseding Resolution), and in particular paragraph 4, which sets out the catch and effort reporting requirements for surface fisheries, longline and coastal fisheries;
ACKNOWLEDGING that the IOTC Scientific Committee has repeatedly stressed the importance of the timeliness and accuracy of data submissions for Members;
ALSO RECALLING the outcomes of the 9th Session of the IOTC Scientific Committee held in Victoria, Seychelles from 6 to 10 November 2006 where it was agreed that a standardised logbook would be advantageous and agreed on the minimum requirements for all purse seine and bait boat fleets operating in the IOTC area of competence in order to harmonise data gathering and provide a common basis for scientific analysis for all IOTC Contracting Parties and Cooperating Non-Contracting Parties (CPCs);
FURTHER RECALLING the recommendations adopted by the KOBE II Workshop on Bycatch, held in Brisbane, Australia, 23–25 June 2010; in particular that RFMOs should consider adopting standards for bycatch data collection which, at a minimum, allows the data to contribute to the assessment of bycatch species population status and evaluation of the effectiveness of bycatch measures, and that the data should allow the RFMOs to assess the level of interaction of the fisheries with bycatch species;
FURTHER CONSIDERING the work of the small task force created by the IOTC Scientific Committee during its 10th Session held in Seychelles in November 2007, to harmonise the various forms currently used by the fleets and the IOTC Scientific Committee agreement on the minimum standard requirements for all purse seine, longline and gillnet fleets as well as the produced logbook template;
FURTHER CONSIDERING the deliberations of the 13th Session of the IOTC Scientific Committee held in Victoria, Seychelles from 6 to 10 December 2010, that recommended three options, one of which is mandatory reporting of a revised list of shark species in logbooks to improve the data collection and statistics on sharks in the IOTC area of competence;
FURTHER CONSIDERING the deliberations of the 14th Session of the IOTC Scientific Committee held in Mahé, Seychelles from 12 to 17 December 2011, that proposed a list of shark species for all gears and recommended minimum recording requirements for handline and trolling gears in the IOTC area of competence;
FURTHER CONSIDERING the recommendations of the 17th Session of the IOTC Scientific Committee referring to bycatch;
FURTHER CONSIDERING the call upon States, either individually, collectively or through regional fisheries management organisations and arrangements included in the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 67/79 on sustainable fisheries to collect the necessary data in order to evaluate and closely monitor the use of large-scale fish aggregating devices and others, as appropriate, and their effects on tuna resources and tuna behaviour and associated and dependent species, to improve management procedures to monitor the number, type and use of such devices and to mitigate possible negative effects on the ecosystem, including on juveniles and the incidental bycatch of non-target species, particularly sharks and turtles;
ADOPTS, in accordance with the provisions of Article IX, paragraph 1 of the IOTC Agreement, the following:
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.
The measure shall apply to all purse seine, longline, gillnet, pole and line, handline and trolling fishing vessels over 24 metres length overall and those under 24 metres if they fish outside the EEZs of their flag States within the IOTC area of competence. The data recording systems for developing CPCs vessels less than 24 metres operating within the EEZ of coastal States are subject to Paragraphs 11 and 12. The vessels of less than 24 metres operating within the EEZ of developed CPCs shall apply this measure.
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.
Each flag CPC shall submit to the IOTC Executive Secretary by 15 February 2016 a template of its official logbooks to record data in accordance with Annex I, II and III, for publishing on the IOTC website to facilitate MCS activities. For CPCs that use electronic logbook systems, a copy of the applicable regulations implementing the electronic logbook system in that CPC, a set of screen captures and the name of the certified software may be provided. If changes are made to the template after 15 February 2016, an updated template shall be submitted.
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.
Annex I includes information on vessel, trip and gear configuration for purse seine, longline, gillnet and pole and line, and shall only be completed once for each trip, unless the gear configuration changes during the trip.
Annex II contains information for purse seine, longline, gillnet and pole and line operations and catch, which shall be completed for each set/shot/operation of the fishing gear.
Annex III contains specifications for handline and trolling gears.
The logbook shall be completed by the Master of the fishing vessel and submitted to the flag State administration, as well as to the coastal State administration where the vessel has fished in that coastal State's EEZ. Only the part of the logbook corresponding to the activity deployed in the coastal State EEZ shall be provided to the coastal State administration where the vessel has fished in that coastal State’s EEZ.
The Flag State shall provide all the data for any given year to the IOTC Secretariat by June 30th of the following year on an aggregated basis. The confidentiality rules set out in Resolution 12/02 Data Confidentiality Policy and Procedures (or any subsequent superseding Resolution) for fine–scale data shall apply.
Noting the difficulty in implementing a data recording system on fishing vessels from developing CPCs, the data recording systems for vessels less than 24 metres of developing CPCs operating inside the EEZ shall be implemented progressively from 1 July 2016.
The Commission shall consider development of a special program to facilitate the implementation of this Resolution by developing CPCs. Furthermore, developed and developing CPCs are encouraged to work together to identify opportunities for capacity building to assist the long-term implementation of this Resolution.
This Resolution supersedes Resolution 13/03 On the recording of catch and effort by fishing vessels in the IOTC area of competence.
