Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
grounds at least 5 nm distant if they caught more than 1 tonne of rays in a haul.
This was implemented in the 2001 fishing season and was adopted by CCAMLR
in October 2001 for application to all subsequent fishing seasons. Bycatch limits
were also introduced that year. Stimulated by research at South Georgia, CCAMLR
introduced a measure to cut all rays off lines at the water surface to improve their
discard survivorship. Thus, the monitoring and research programme was initiated
by GSGSSI during certification and well before the date of the final certification
decision.
Although there was recorded information on the occurrence of benthos on hooks
and the discard of hooks in offal available before certification, the fishery had not
recognised the potential importance of these issues. Up to that time, attention had
been focussed on the essential and successful development of measures to avoid
the incidental mortality of endangered species of birds. However, once the two
additional issues were noted GSGSSI initiated a detailed monitoring programme
(on hooks in offal in 2002 and on impacts on benthos in 2004) and changes to
CCAMLR conservation measures to request that fish hooks not be discarded with
offal. Trials of methods to do this, in 2003, were successful and so, once again at
the instigation of the UK, CCAMLR created a mandatory condition that vessels
retain all hooks from discarded offal, effective from the 2004 fishing season.
11.6
Conclusions
As with most fisheries that are interested in submitting for MSC assessment, there
were a variety of reasons that GSGSSI sought certification. First and foremost, GS-
GSSI has a conservation responsibility to the whole South Georgia ecosystem, in-
cluding its marine ecosystem (Agnew 2004). Certification was seen as an extremely
valuable external review of its stewardship. It was also seen as a means of reviewing
and strengthening the management systems of CCAMLR. The CCAMLR Catch
Document Scheme was designed to eliminate IUU trade in toothfish whilst pre-
serving an acceptance that there are many different toothfish stocks, each managed
differently. Certification of the South Georgia toothfish fishery has considerably
strengthened the catch documentation scheme.
The MSC process did, as expected, define a number of areas where science and
management systems at South Georgia would benefit from improvement. Improve-
ments have, in many cases, already been delivered - for instance in the areas of
estimation of IUU fishing, reduction of discards of hooks in offal improved assess-
ment and understanding of benthic impacts. Certification of the fishery necessarily
also included some component of review of the wider CCAMLR management sys-
tem. This has also proved valuable and has resulted in the development of new
assessment techniques for toothfish throughout the whole Antarctic (CCAMLR
2006), as well as wider application of ray and seabird mitigation measures, hook
discard regulations, and studies on benthic impacts throughout the Antarctic.
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