CCAMLR

A bottom trawl survey for demersal finfish was undertaken by Germany aboard R/V ‘Polarstern’ around Elephant Island, the South Shetland Islands and at the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula from 17 March to 5 April 2012. In this paper we provide information on species composition, biomass, and size composition of the abundant fish species encountered during the survey. Catches in the Elephant Island – South Shetland Islands suggest that biomass of N. rossii and C. gunnari have increased since the last survey in 2006/07.

The delegation of New Zealand proposes the establishment by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Living Marine Resources (Commission or CCAMLR) of a marine protected area (MPA) in the Ross Sea Region (“Ross Sea Region Marine Protected Area”).  In recognition of the globally significant ecological, environmental, scientific and historic values of the Ross Sea Region, and in line with the work plan of the Scientific Committee to develop a representative system of Antarctic MPAs, the New Zealand delegation proposes to establish this MPA in order to achieve the conservation of Antarctic marine living resources.  This proposal is consistent with the general framework for establishing CCAMLR marine protected areas (CM 91-04 (2011)) and with the process by which New Zealand developed its MPA scenario, reviewed favorably by the Scientific Committee in 2011.

Further to the strong will expressed by Members at CCAMLR XXX to progress the work of the Development of a Compliance Evaluation Procedure Group, Australia coordinated intersessional work on developing a compliance evaluation procedure. Australia has developed a draft conservation measure proposing a CCAMLR Compliance Evaluation Procedure (CEP), presented at Attachment A. The purpose of the proposed CCAMLR CEP is to provide a formal mechanism for the assessment of Members' compliance against the conservation measures adopted by the Commission.  Australia proposes that the Commission adopt the attached draft conservation measure establishing a compliance evaluation procedure for CCAMLR.

A stock assessment of the Patagonian toothfish (Dissostichus eleginoides) at Kerguelen Islands (CCAMLR Division 58.5.1) was undertaken using the modelling software CASAL, based on different statistical and biological datasets: abundance estimation from the POKER 1 (2006) and 2 (2010) surveys, standardized CPUE of commercial fisheries, tag releases and recoveries by length bin,  commercial catch-at-length data... CASAL is a simple, single-sex, single-area population model. The spatial complexity in the fishery is modeled using separate fishing selectivity functions depending on the fishing zone and the type of fishing vessels (trawlers, longliners). The fishing zone for the longliners is divided into four zones (North, East, South, Skiff Bank) and into two depth zones: shallow < 1,500m; deep > 1,500m. Commercial catch are integrated in the model by CCAMLR season. A weighted combination of datasets was integrated using the effective sample sizes calculated at the level of each haul. An iteratively estimated process error was applied to the length frequency data. With an initial biomass of about 218,000 tons, the modelling tends to present results which are consistent with the stock assessments undertaken by the Australian scientific team at Heard and McDonald Islands (division 58.5.2) and over the Kerguelen Plateau. The biomass long-term projection, done for the Patagonian toothfish with a simulated 5,100 tons catch by longliners, fulfils the CCAMLR management rules.  Research studies aiming at collecting more biological data and getting a better understanding of the population spatial complexity should be continued to consolidate the model.