CCAMLR

Notification for multi-year research in Subarea 48.5.

The multi-year research plan that was adopted for the exploratory longline fishery in Statistical Subarea 48.6 and formulated in CM 41-04 (2012) is briefly summarised and progress made by Japan and South Africa during the first 6 months is presented. Two vessels participated in the fishery and so far they have concentrated their sampling effort in the southern section (south of 60˚S), where they caught a total of 162.8 tonnes of Dissostichus spp. out of the 200 tonne catch limit (Table 2). They have taken only 65.2 tonnes of Dissostichus spp. from the northern section to date. A total of 1 309 Dissostichus spp. were tagged (158 D. eleginoides and 1 151 D. mawsoni) exceeding the required tagging rate of 5 fish per ton. A total of 213 D. eleginoides and 5 530 D. mawsoni) were measured. The vessel combined tag overlap statistic was in excess of 70% in all Research Blocks. A total of 13 recaptures were recorded, of which 3 were within year recaptures.

Only minor modifications are suggested to the current research plan for the 2013/14 season. The current requirement for an minimum spacing of 3 nautical miles should be removed. Possible changes to the distribution of the research allocation across Research Blocks and the possible inclusion of an additional Research Block in the southern section are tabled for discussion and possible implementation.

The delegations of New Zealand and the United States propose the establishment by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living 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 exceptional ecological value and scientific importance of the Ross Sea Region, our delegations propose to establish this MPA to conserve living marine resources; maintain ecosystem structure and function; protect vital ecosystem processes and areas of ecological significance; and establish reference areas that will promote scientific research.  This proposal is consistent with Conservation Measure 91-04 (2011) and the scientific conclusions and processes, reviewed by the Scientific Committee, from which the United States and New Zealand developed their original MPA scenarios for the Ross Sea Region.  This proposal was last submitted to CCAMLR as CCAMLR-XXXI/16 Rev. 1 on October 29, 2012, during the 31st Meeting of the Commission.  Except where noted in strikethrough/bold, the text of the proposed Conservation Measure is the same as that submitted on October 29, 2012.  The delegations of New Zealand and the United States appreciate the many comments received from other Members on proposals for a Ross Sea Region MPA, including at CCAMLR XXX, XXXI and intersessionally.  We look forward to working together with Members in Bremerhaven to achieve consensus to establish this MPA.

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) find increasing application in different fields of modern oceanography, marine biology and fishery monitoring. The Russian Federal Research Institute of Fishery and Oceanography (VNIRO) has developed the new GIS ‘ChartMaster’ designed for processing the data provided by the fisheries oceanographic surveys. This software allows:

• to analyze the data of hydro acoustic, trawling, trap and scuba-diving surveys;
• to draw maps of spatial distribution of species biomass and abundance;
• to estimate the instant biomass in the surveyed area;
• to carry out the survey planning and designing;
• to carry out adaptive planning during the survey in order to localize and outline the areas of high concentrations of commercial species.

As an example of the GIS «ChartMaster» application for studying aquatic living resources in the Antarctic waters:

• The Chart of possible catches of toothfish carried out by the Spanish longline (in dimension kg) is presented. The chart was calculated according to the catch results of the Russian fishing vessels in the Antarctic area (from 71º26.4’ S to 72º20.3’ S and from 174º11.9’ E to 177º08.6’ E ) during January-February, 2004.
• The spatial distribution of krill density (in dimension ton/nmile²) and estimation of krill biomass (with confidence interval calculated by stochastic simulation method) off the South Georgia Island is presented. These results were computed by data of the hydroacoustic survey carried out by the Russian R/V «Atlantida» in February-March, 2002.

We present an analysis of potential threats from fishing to the achievement of MPA objectives identified in the Ross Sea region MPA proposal submitted jointly by New Zealand and the USA.  Ecosystem threats from fishing potentially undermine the requirements of Article II(3) paragraphs b and c.  Fishing may also threaten science objectives, e.g. preventing establishment of scientific reference areas, or undermining ongoing efforts to understand environmental change un-confounded by human impacts.  Where particular threats can be foreseen and located in space, MPA designation is one effective means of avoiding or mitigating ecosystem risks and promoting scientific objectives.  Both threat-based objectives and scientific objectives were always implicit in the systematic process of MPA design used by New Zealand and the USA over several years; in this paper we make the underlying logic more explicit, drawing upon new and previously submitted material to identify threats to the MPA objectives, map those threats in space, and detail plausible mechanisms by which those threats can be expected to occur.