Report of the Regional Co-ordination Group for the North Atlantic (RCG NA). Annual Meeting 2018. Instituto Español de Oceanografía, Vigo (Spain), 10-14 September 2018

• Main Author: Regional Coordination Group North Atlantic
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00871/98298/107661.pdf; https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00871/98298/

The RCG NA met in Vigo between the 10-14 September 2018 to review the progress of intersessional work since 2017, discuss and agree on outcomes and plan the work for 2018/2019 around the key areas of regional coordination in fisheries data collection: governance; regional sampling plans, identifying enduser needs and data quality. Addressing ToR 2 on Governance, rules of procedures were adopted by remaining Member States based on intersessional review and required adjustments. These RoPs will roll over until 2019, when they are reviewed during the next annual meeting. RCG NA agreed to merge with RCGNS &EA from 2019 onwards and proposes to hold two joint annual meetings: a technical meeting in June, followed by a formal NC meeting in September to review/discuss proposals and reach agreements. Using the outputs from fishPi2 WP1 on regional subgroups, RCG NA agreed on how subgroups should work intersessionally and listed 9 high level thematic groups. RCG NA emphasised that to achieve tangible outputs requires the setting up of specific and well defined intersessional work tasks and the commitments by individuals and their labs. An increase in the visibility of RCG work is required to encourage higher levels of participation. A dedicated website as well as a RCG secretariat which can assist in the administrative duties and project manage the work are proposed means to achieve this goal and their funding sources were discussed. The RCG agreed that a limited regional workplan is to be developed and put forward to STECF and building blocks of such a work plan were identified under the headings of “procedures”, ”methods”, ”Quality assurance and control” and “cost sharing of surveys”. The building blocks under these headings included eligible meetings and intersessional subgroup tasks; standardised sampling methods freezer trawler; quality assurance: + control; RDBES quality assurance, SISP for surveys, and surveys under existing cost sharing agreements. A subgroup was set up to develop the process for submitting the ...