Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries (STECF) - Management plans part 2 - developing area based management plans (STECF-12-14)

The STECF Expert Working Group (EWG 12-07) on Management plans pt2 met in Edinburgh, Scotland from 18 to 22 of June 2012. The meeting provided two reports one on management aspects relating to the revision of cod management plans (STECF-12-13) and this report which considers area and modelling options. It is concluded that it may be preferable to join the Eastern Channel with the North Sea and join the Western Channel with Celtic Seas. It is considered preferable to join both Kattegat and Skagerrak with the North Sea largely because of the important Nephrops fisheries. The Northern boundary of the Irish Sea is considered to be appropriately located, a minor modification is proposed for the southern boundary to deal with catches that are taken within the current area and reallocated to Celtic Sea. Fishing activities are strongly linked economically between VIa north and IVa, and VIa south and Celtic Seas suggesting there may be potential benefits in splitting the West of Scotland area and joining the two parts accordingly. Such an approach would create a very large ‘greater North Sea’ with diverse fleets and there is potential to split this along a largely hydrographic boundary reducing the scale of the area and reducing fleet diversity within areas. For each area the report outlines modelling possibilities and indicative resource implications identified for different options. Currently only small scale adhoc economic analysis can be provided based on the existing tools. It is anticipated it will be between 2 to 3 years to provide more comprehensive area based economic advice and this is conditional on developing ways to link the biological and economic data
JRC.G.4-Maritime affairs