CCAMLR

The Russian Federation is going to continue investigation for toothfish in Ross Sea. The previous Russian program was undertaken in the Subarea 88.2 in 2010–2012. This paper presents the research program in the frame of the research and monitoring associated with the Ross Sea region marine protected area.

Russian research program have objectives to investigate the life-cycle, distribution and movement, biological parameters and stock structure of Dissostichus species in the eastern part of the Ross Sea over shelf and continental slope within the Subarea 88.2 A. The tagging toothfish and recapture tagged fishes to be in focus. The study area is located in the Special Research Zone of the RSRMPA. Proposals include the priority elements of the research and monitoring plan for the Ross Sea region marine protected area. 

The research program shall be conducted in the Special Research Zone during 2018–2027 or the first reference period for existence of the RSRMPA.  This program provides possibility for collaborative investigations in the Special Research Zone by Russian vessels and vessel from other CCAMLR country-members.

Russian program provides proposals to study the species composition, biology, life cycle, distribution and structure of craboids stock (Anomura, Decapoda) and assess their resource potential in the Bellingshausen Sea (Subarea 88.3) and Amundsen Sea (Subarea 88.2).

Spain and Australia are conducting fishing research in the 58.4.1 Division from 2013 and 2017 respectively, in order to get data and biological samples which enable an assessment of Antarctic toothfish in this so called “data poor” area at the end of the whole experience. From the five surveys completed, the last two have been in coordination between the five proponents, namely Australia, Japan, Republic of Korea, France and Spain.

Spain and Australia are working on the ageing and growth estimates of Antarctic toothfish from 2015 and 2017 respectively. Previous work has been presented to the  FSA-WGs where a von Bertalanffy growth function based on a least-square fitting approach from length-age pair values had been estimated for every season.   An intersessional exchange of 40 “bake and embed” otolith samples, mounted by Spain, has been made in order to compare consistency in ages estimated by different readers. Each otolith were read by 6 readers (4 Spanish and 2 Australian). As a result of these comparative analysis further work about coordination between experienced and new readers is needed.

This document provides a summary of progress towards milestones and responses to recommendations from WG-SAM, WG-FSA and the Scientific Committee relating to the multi-Member research plan for the toothfish exploratory fishery in Divisions 58.4.1 and 58.4.2 between 2011/12 and 2017/18.

Table 1 provides a summary of responses to the recommendations with references to the associated outputs in this paper or the new research plan (WG-FSA-18/59). In particular, this paper presents:

• Tag-overlap statistics at the scale of the research block (Figure 1) and the distribution of tags recaptured in research block 5841_2 in 2017/18 (Figure 2)
• Progress toward the case-control estimation of effective tagging survival and effective tag-detection rates (Figure 3, Table 3)
• Report on Milestone 2.2 of WG-FSA-17/18 Rev. 1: ‘Update spatially-explicit habitat-use models for toothfish using data from CTDs and BVCs’ (Appendix 1)
• Report on Milestone 2.3 of WG-FSA-17/18 Rev. 1 ‘Sharing of environmental data with SOOS (Appendix 2)
• Report on Milestone 1.10 of WG-FSA-17/18 Rev. 1: ‘Initial integrated stock assessment models for toothfish within research blocks or across SSRUs and Divisions’ (Appendix 3 and 4)

This paper also provides a summary of planned and actual achievement dates for the milestones of the 2015/16 - 2017/18 research plan (WG-FSA-17/18 Rev. 1). Previous research milestones under the 2015/16 - 2017/18 research plan have been achieved as planned (Table 2). Reports relating to 2018 milestones (1.8, 1.9, 3.1 and 4.3) have been submitted as separate papers as indicated in Table 2.

La CCAMLR a reconnu l'importance du renforcement des capacités des Membres afin d’accroître leur participation aux travaux de la CCAMLR. Cette proposition vise à soutenir la mise en place du fonds de renforcement des capacités générales (« le Fonds ») envisagé par le groupe de correspondance de la période d'intersession de la CCAMLR sur le financement durable et propose en ce sens un mécanisme de mise en œuvre de ce Fonds conformément à ses objectifs, avec établissement d'un comité. Le mécanisme proposé se base sur l'annexe 10-05/B « Utilisation du fonds du SDC ».  Conformément au mécanisme proposé, le présent document propose également à la Commission de continuer d’inscrire le renforcement des capacités à son ordre du jour afin d'en faciliter la mise en œuvre par la CCAMLR.  Enfin, ce document propose que la Commission établisse un groupe de contact pour aider à la mise en œuvre du fonds de renforcement des capacités générales pendant la période d'intersession.