Marine Fisheries Working Group Terms of Reference and Work Plan 2022

Background and Rationale

The socio-economic importance of global fisheries (capture and culture) is immense through significant contributions to employment, nutrition, and trade in all parts of the world. However, its sustainability is under threat by the increasing number of poorly managed fisheries, data-deficiency, overfishing, or negatively affected fisheries by illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, especially at the times of climate-induced unpredictability. Together with a global increase in demand, the impacts extend beyond the harvested fish stocks to ocean biodiversity and the livelihoods of millions of fisherfolk across the world.

Some species are endangered and vulnerable, while some invasive species have been biologically and/or economically affecting some other fish resources in some regions due to natural and anthropogenic factors, i.e. climate change, migration, illegal dislodging of ballast waters, Harmful algal blooms and marine debris.

There is a need to share existing fisheries resources and collect/integrate new in-situ data: this includes fish species presence or (by-)catch, human activities impacting the fishery, as well as other aspects related to artisanal fisheries. This is required to understand the status of resources and exploitation rate but also necessary to inform stakeholders to develop plans and sustainable management practices.

This Working Group will work with countries to identify the needs and the gaps in data availability and knowledge sharing for the fisheries communities from local-to-global levels and across all scales and types of marine fisheries. This Working Group will support the implementation of actions to promote informed socio-economic strategies, bridging the gap between scientific knowledge and decision-makers.

The scope of this Working Group covers all scale and type of fisheries: capture fishery (artisanal and commercial) and culture fishery (coastal aquaculture and offshore fish farming).

Past Actions

This report aims to provide guidance on how to bring together traditional monitoring techniques with new technologies and data science in order to better monitoring our oceans in the context of the SDGs. The report focuses on the SDG indicators where UNEP is the custodian and responsible for global monitoring, including SDG 14.1.1(a) on coastal eutrophication; SDG 14.1.1(b) on marine debris, SDG 14.2.1 on marine area management and SDG 14.5.1 on protected areas and conservation. — Understanding the State of the Ocean: A Global Manual on Measuring SDG 14.1.1, SDG 14.2.1 and SDG 14.5.1
To showcase and increase awareness of Earth observation information for sustainable fisheries management, GEO Blue Planet hosted a workshop series focused on the use of Earth observations for sustainable tuna fisheries. GEO Blue Planet invites relevant stakeholders, including those involved in tuna RFMOs, fisheries management councils, technical experts and others to discuss the integration of EO in sustainable fisheries management.

Objectives

The objectives of GEO Blue Planet Fisheries Working Group are to:

Identify gaps in geo-referenced data and information related to living marine resources at the global-to-local levels – Stakeholder Engagement Core Action Area
Support the development of tools and information services to inform the management of living marine resources to address user needs – Cooperation and Co-design Core Action Area
Establish recommendations on best practices in the monitoring and modelling of living marine resources based on a network of experts – Cooperation and Co-design Core Action Area
Provide support for technology transfer, training, and information exchange – Capacity Development Core Action Area

Resources

At this point no specific resources outside the secretariat support has been identified.

Working group Composition

Co-chairs

Anton Ellenbroek, Isa Elegbede (ECOP)

Secretariat Lead

EU Office Coordinator Audrey Hasson

Members

Kwame Adu Agyekum (University of Ghana)

Bennet Atsu Foli (University of Ghana)

Shelly-Ann Cox (Blue Shell, Barbados) – tbc

Isa Elegbede (Brandenburg University of Technology, MBON)

Anton Ellenbroek (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN)

Katie Geddes (University of Miami)

George Grinson (SAARC Agriculture Centre)

Nimit Kumar (Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services, India, POGO and PORSEC)

Patrick Lehodey (SPC/Mercator Ocean International)

Nikelene Mclean (Knauss Fellow @NOAA)

Hassan Moustahfid (NOAA, MBON)

Pedro Ribeiro (Deimos)

Subrata Sarker (Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Bangladesh)

Shubha Sathyendranath (PML, UK)

Vardis Tsontos (JPL CalTech/NASA, USA)

Expected groups to contact

Group of Fisheries agencies (RFMOs)

Global Fishing Watch

As a voluntary group, membership to the working group organizing committee and project task is open. To inquire about the working group, please contact the secretariat lead.

Deliverables 2022-2025

Action 1
SMS Fisheries Alerts for Bangladesh
Transfer of early warning of ocean state information disseminated using flags and SMS developed by GMES and Africa / University of Ghana, towards Bangladesh. Bangladesh is interested in generating potential fishing zone and ocean state SMS alerts for their artisanal fishing communities. The University of Ghana will be working with Shahlajal University and An Organisation for Socio-Economic Development (AOSED) in Bangladesh to do a tech transfer of a similar system produced in Ghana.

Action Lead: Subrata Sarker

Supporting Members: Kwame Adu Agyekum, Nimit Kumar, Bennet Atsu Foli
Action 2
EO and Ocean data to support fisheries and Climate Change modelling
Review existing best practices and standards for EO and ocean data access and dissemination to support models relevant to Fisheries and Climate Change and recommend way forward.

Best practices and standards are the two most common dimensions present in broadly accepted methodologies and services to ensure consistency in achieving a superior product or end state. Best practices and standards are part of a continuum of community agreements. Best practices are descriptions of methods, that generally originated bottom-up by individual organizations. Best practices can become standards if established by panels in standards organizations or equivalent. This task will look at both standards and best practices, focusing first on reviewing existing best practices for EO and ocean data access and dissemination to support urgent needs, planet-wide challenges we face from climate change, and especially the challenges that the fisheries sector is facing to cope and adapt to climate and ecosystem changes. We will then look at the standards services and recommend ways forward to improve data access and dissemination of EO and Ocean data.

Action Lead: Anton Ellenbroek

Supporting Members: Hassan Moustahfid,Patrick Lehodey and Bennet Foli
Action 3
EO data for onshore and offshore culture fisheries
This action item aims to outline a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to use the EO data (remote-sensing, in-situ and modelling) for site selection of farms being developed, as well as in supporting the ongoing culture with a DSS (Decision Support System). Another deliverable in addition to preparation of the SOP handbook/report, would be to impart training for the countries with economy in-transition and/or emerging culture industry.

Action Lead: Isa Elegbede

Supporting Members: Nimit Kumar, Nikelene Mclean
Action 4
Develop a road map for the utilization of short and medium-term EO-based forecast products and fishing vessel traffic data relevant to fisheries management
This action will review existing short-and medium EO –based forecast products relevant to fisheries and develop a road map on how to support GEO countries to utilize forecast and satellite products relevant to their fisheries needs. This may include 1- ecological monitoring and forecasting of ocean productivity and potential fishing zone (PFZ) based on marine remote sensing data; 2- HABs forecasting, 3- forecasting fish species distribution and abundance based on species distribution models, e.g., Tuna species and 4- modeling spatio-temporal bycatch dynamics for both endangered and protected species. The action will also explore other cross-cutting products such as those derived from the analysis of fishing vessel traffic data to understand human impact on the exploitation of fish and to support efforts at curbing illegal fishing.

Action Leads: Kwame/Hassan/ Pedro

Supporting Members: Nimit, Shubha, Isa
Action 5
Identify gaps in EO data to establish the impact of Marine Litter on Fisheries
This Action can be a joint action between the Marine Litter WG.

Marine litter have numerous impacts on the environment, creating hazards to navigation, and ghost fishing of commercially important species resulting in lost catch opportunities and economic losses for fisherfolks.

To address this action, we will identify gaps in Earth observation data by engaging the Integrated Marine Debris Observing System, as well as with international experts from academia, industry, civil society and stakeholders. This action will also explore the opportunity to develop a way forward to address these gaps on data and knowledge to address the impact of marine litter on fish, fisheries and fisher’s livelihoods.

We could also collaborate / support the 1st Prize Blue Cloud Hackathon winner: The Particle Trackers – led by Delphine Lobelle (Utrecht University)

Action Lead: Audrey

Supporting Members: Nikelene, Audrey, Nimit, Hassan, Kwame
Action 6
Peer-reviewed White Paper from the Tuna workshop
This Action will produce a summary White Paper from the GEO Blue Planet “Earth Observations for Tuna Fisheries Management” workshop which was held virtually in November-December 2020. Workshop sessions included, “Current knowledge and understanding of climate change impacts on tuna fisheries,” “Sustainable fisheries management of tuna: challenges and solutions,” “Improving sustainable tuna management and biodiversity conservation through EO data,” “EO data for detection and monitoring of vessel activities to reduce IUU fishing,” “EO for habitat mapping and operational forecasting system for tuna”. This White Paper will summarize the five sessions of the workshop and connect the key take aways to the current state of knowledge within the academic community, identifying gaps and proposing data-based solutions.

Action Lead: Katie Geddes

Supporting Members: Hassan, Nimit, Isa

Timeline

The timeline will be defined by the deliverables.

FISHERIES

Marine Fisheries Working Group Terms of Reference and Work Plan 2022

Background and Rationale

Past Actions

Understanding the State of the Ocean: A Global Manual on Measuring SDG 14.1.1, SDG 14.2.1 and SDG 14.5.1

Objectives

Resources

Working group Composition

Deliverables 2022-2025

Action 1

SMS Fisheries Alerts for Bangladesh

Action 2

EO and Ocean data to support fisheries and Climate Change modelling

Action 3

EO data for onshore and offshore culture fisheries

Action 4

Develop a road map for the utilization of short and medium-term EO-based forecast products and fishing vessel traffic data relevant to fisheries management

Action 5

Identify gaps in EO data to establish the impact of Marine Litter on Fisheries

Action 6

Peer-reviewed White Paper from the Tuna workshop

Timeline

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