Doc. 14.9-15.4
14th Meeting of the BSC Advisory Group on Environmental Aspects of Management of Fisheries and Other Marine Living Resources (AG FOMLR) and Cetacean workshop
Minutes
September 19 – 20th, 2011, Istanbul, Turkey
Chairman: Mr. Simion Nicolaev
Abbreviations used:
ACCOBAMS – Agreement on the Conservation of Cetaceans in the Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea and Contiguous Atlantic Area;
BG – Bulgaria; GE – Georgia; RO – Romania; RU – Russian Federation; TR – Turkey; UA – Ukraine.
D – Decision;
R – Reminder
The 14th Meeting of the FOMLR AG was held back to back with the workshop on Black Sea Cetaceans Protection/Conservation to strengthen the communication of cetacean and fishery experts in the Black Sea region and to improve the reporting of the BSC in the field of marine mammals protection and conservation. The meeting was attended by delegations from all the Black Sea countries and invited guests from fishery expert pool of the BS and cetacean experts.
A1: Opening and Welcome, introduction of participants, approval of the agenda and the minutes of the previous meeting. Report on decisions of 13th FOMLR AG meeting
Mr. Simion Nicolaev, the chairman of the FOMLR AG opened the meeting and welcomed the participants and congratulated the new team of the BSC Permanent Secretariat, hoping in a very good collaboration in the future as it was with the previous team. He also congratulated Mr. Alexei Birkun for his new position as chairman of the Scientific Committee of ACCOBAMS. The participants presented themselves. Ms. Irina Lomashvili, expert from GE announced that Mr. Revaz Diasamidze will come next day for the meeting, when he will present the national report of GE. Mr. Nicolaev made some remarks on the agenda of the meeting, pointing out that some of the items were in the last meeting agenda as well, but there are still some things to be discussed, clarified and approved by the group. The agenda was adopted without any changes. The Chairman reviewed the Minutes of the previous meeting, appreciating the very good quality of the document elaborated by the previous PMA officer; he had a small comment on the page 2, were it is presented the Romanian fishery report for 2009, pointing out that the EC funding will continue not only for dogfish stock assessment, but for other species as well. He asked if there is new information on the fishery project intended to be submitted to GEF for financing.
Mr. Myroshnychenko informed that he had a private communication with Mr. Vladimir Mamaev from UNDP and learned that the submission of the project was postponed for next year. With small comments, the Minutes of the 13th meeting were adopted by the FOMLR AG.
Related to the decisions of the previous meeting, the Chairman commented that all the regulations mentioned in the decision 1 are part of the reporting template, and all the countries should fill in every year. National authorities should be convinced that it’s not normal to have different regulations for the same species.
VA informed the AG FOMLR about the publication of the regional report and asked all the countries to submit the national reports as soon as possible in order to be able to draft the regional report in time to be presented to BSC meeting in November.
Chair underlined that is of particular importance to include in the next report some provisions related to: stock assessment activities, fishing grounds, dolphin’s by-catch, aquaculture, ongoing projects, processing capacities for fishery products, etc.
R: Publication of the regional report, appreciated as a very good one, which includes all required information.
A2: National reporting
GE, RU and TR asked the permission to present the national report next day. Because from TR, NFP didn’t attend the meeting, Mr. Ertug Duzgunes informed that he can present some information, although this is not the official report of TR. Later on, after the meeting, TR will submit the national report.
BG – Mr. Violin Raykov presented the national report. General information, information on policy framework in BG, consistent with RO, main species by-caught, management instruments, fishing fleet, fishing effort and catch per unit area have been presented. Also, economic indicators – fish consumption (very low in BG), state of fisheries according to EC’s guidelines, data regarding the export of turbot and Rapa Whelk, information on ongoing research projects dealing with living marine resources, marine habitats classified according to NATURA 2000 and other related activities have been presented. Starting of a new project with acronym CREAM was mentioned as well, Mr. Raykov representing the BSC PS in the project’s kick-off meeting held in May 2011. Same missing data as in the previous year (illegal fishery) and same problems reported.
The group commented on the figures reported for Rapana. Mr. Raykov explained that figures represent only the exported quantity and not reflect the internal consumption as well.
There were discussions related to the fishing regulations; there were comments on the fact that TR fleet fishing smaller size fish that the other BS countries and the countries in the region should have common regulations for fishing. The Chairman added that in RO and BG it is forbidden to use the dredge and demersal trawl for fishing, while TR doesn’t have this prohibition; also he pointed out that the fishing should be competitive in the region, and TR shouldn’t be allowed to use all kind of fishing gears/nets. TR expert confirmed that it will be useful for entire region to have common regulations on fisheries. He observed that another species can become an exploitable resource: Rapana venosa. The Chairman explained that it’s true that Rapana occupied a niche into the Black Sea ecosystem, became successfully acclimatized and should be subject for regulation as well. On the other hand, this represents an introduced species in the Black Sea and the scientists have the duty to show to relevant authorities the necessity to consider this species to be regulated under common criteria.
GE – Mr. Diasamidze presented a short report concentrated mainly on the principal commercial species, anchovy being one of them. He explained that GE fishing fleet is in a very bad condition, therefore often GE asks TR for help. They have only three vessels and the fish stocks were estimated at around 180,000 tons. The present catch is situated around 30,000 tons; the most used fishing equipment are purse seines. By catch was estimated at 40 tons: turbot – 5t, mackerel – 23t, and red mullet – 12t. He said that there are no official data on catches and TR seiners do not release the catches to GE market and take it to TR. Regarding the fish farms there is a trend to renovate and privatize them, and new owners need information on how to manage them. Salmon farms are developing presently in GE.
RO – Mr. Gh. Radu presented the national report, which was sent prior to the meeting. Full information on the agreed indicators has been provided, except for illegal fishing. He presented also the information related to dolphins by-caught in the nets and on strandings. The information on biomass of the main species found in the RO waters shows an increasing pressure on the turbot and anchovy stocks.
Mr. Duzgunes observed that in RO and BG the artisanal fishing prevails and inquired about the intention of the Ministry to establish new fishing companies. Mr. Radu explained that for the future NAFA intends to increase the fishing fleet capacities with EU subsidies. As the established TAC for turbot it’s not high, the existent capacity can cover it. Mr. Raykov added that BG and RO have common programmes for fisheries and carry out common cruises for stock assessment; the fishermen can be attracted into this, but it’s very hard to enroll new vessels into the registry, as the tendency is to reduce the fishing effort. The Chairman informed that RO elaborated a fishing vessels registry and EU legislation allows some changes to be made, but only within the existing capacity. He also explained that according to other regulations, the fishing vessels’ capacity can be increased, maintained or even reduced, if necessary. Mr. Duzgunes recalled that in the surveys carried out in the 1990ies for tuna, the ideal size was 20-25 cm. The Chairman specified, that the restrictions are not related to the fish size, but the fishing vessels’ capacity.
RU – Mr. Agapov presented the national report. Information on catches of the main commercial species, on landings, on scientific research carried out in RU, on stock biomass of the same commercial species has been presented.
The participants commented on the total catch presented for 2010 and asked for explanation. The answer was that fact is due to the reduction of fishing effort.
TR – Mr. Duzgunes presented a report for TR, recognizing that this is not the official reporting; he reported on the state of fisheries in 2010; the new organization of Ministry of Agriculture and the present legal framework were presented. Data related to total production of fish revealed that 76% of the total production of marine fish originates from the Black Sea. Data on marine catch for fish and other species were also presented. Aquaculture is quite developed in TR both for marine and freshwater species. Information on fishing fleet and fisheries management has been presented as well.
The Chairman appreciated the report as one of the best reports for TR in the last years.
Mr. Radu asked about the situation of turbot in aquaculture; and observed the number rather big of fishing vessels (50,000). The answer was that for time being the cultivation of turbot it’s only experimental and big number of fishing vessels means that they are small and use gillnets. There were questions related to the disappearance of bottom species, if there is established quota for fish and if there is available data on fish age and on fish stocks. Mr. Duzgunes explained that the disappearance of bottom species happened because of the invasive method of trawling to harvest Rapana and think another method must be used for this purpose; quota were established only for anchovy and there is no available data for fish age and stocks.
Mr. Raykov commented on the presented data for anchovy landing and asked in what part of TR prevail anchovy landings and how anchovy is statistically recorded. Mr. Duzgunes answered that there is an impact of marine water warming on anchovy migratory patterns and as result, these were changed; fishing season is much shorter than use to be and anchovy schooling behavior was also changed. Purse seines are not selective. Definitely, climate change and pollution affected fisheries and fish stocks.
UA – Mr. V. Shlyakhov presented the national report, which had exactly the same structure as in the previous year, being focused on fishery indicators.
Further discussions went around the fishing regulations and illegal fishing. Mr. Birkun asked if there is a scientific methodology for assessing the illegal unregulated and unreported fishing. Mr. Shlyakhov answered that there isn’t and gave an example from the Danube Delta, where a number of questionnaires elaborated for illegal nets monitoring were distributed to fishermen, who were asked to answer some questions; these were used to compare the fish mortality with fish landings. The resulted figures of 200 tons represented 5 times less than illegal. Chairman confirmed, saying that in RO was almost the same result, and there is no methodology in place for assessing the illegal fishing, although for fishing vessels it can be deduced taken into account their number and the number of gillnets onboard.
Mr. Radu asked if there is an improvement of the turbot biomass in the UA waters, taking into account that turbot was prohibited for fishing for some years. Mr. Shlyakhov confirmed that there is an increasing of turbot biomass and also the official figures for turbot landings are very low. Recalling the catches per effort unit presented for 2009, the Chairman inquired to be explained how the landings increased. The answer was because of fishing effort increasing. Chairman asked if somebody is aware of a method to assess the illegal unreported and unregulated fishing and received a negative answer. He commented that the impact of illegal fishing impacts the marine environment more than 3 times than the legal fishing, it is targeted to valuable species and doesn’t take into consideration the regulations regarding the mesh size. He concluded that it will be good to inform the relevant authorities on the real impact of the illegal fishing and to recommend some measures to be undertaken.
Mr. Duzgunes informed the participants on a Fishery Observer Programme which should be implemented in the Black Sea. This will imply some observers placed on big fishing vessels that should keep record of the fishing equipments, operation which should be done at least five times per year. In this way, can be assessed how many days per year the fishing vessels are working and to compare with official reports. This can be a good indicator to estimate the real catch. Through well conducted monitoring and surveillance programmes, fishermen should be discouraged to provide unrealistic data on catches. He gave as example a project dealing with assessing the anchovy stocks from the data the vessels’ data which has been carried out in 2002 with good results. Chairman agreed this idea and said that this methodology should be introduced in all BS countries. He added that RO and BG use aerial survey for fishing vessels, and as result their position is known in every moment.
Mr. Birkun observed that there are different approaches in different countries; but the method used by Mr. Shlyakhov would offer an interesting mathematical and statistical approach and can give an idea for a methodology to assess the illegal fishing.