A PA-compliant Rebuilding Plan for Subarea 2 + Divisions 3KLMNO Greenland Halibut Based on the 2005 NAFO Assessment By

• Main Author: Peter A. Shelton
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Greenland; Tac
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.524.38; http://archive.nafo.int/open/sc/2005/scr05-071.pdf

In September 2003 NAFO Fisheries Commission put in place a 15 year rebuilding plan for NAFO Subarea 2 + Divisions 3KLMNO Greenland halibut involving a step-wise reduction in TAC commencing in 2004. Previous analysis has shown that the FC rebuilding plan is not robust to uncertainty in the strength of recent year classes or to the assessment approach that is taken, and is unlikely to be successful. NAFO has yet to implement the Precautionary Approach on any fish stock. The FC rebuilding plan is considerably less cautious than one which would be specified under a Precautionary Approach and is thus inconsistent with The United Nations Agreement for the Implementation of the Provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of December 10, 1982 relating to the Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks. Current fishing mortality on this stock is estimated to be more than 3xFmax. To be compliant with the Precautionary Approach fishing mortality should be immediately reduced to below F0.1. A PA-compliant variable F rebuilding plan is described in which fishing mortality is initially set at 0.5xF0.1, but increases as the stock rebuilds.