Charting our course
A slice of birthday cake, a spot of poetry, a dash of Kiwi fishing craft, and generous quantities of fresh ideas and high enthusiasm sum up the Southern Seabird Solutions review workshop.
Seventy people participated in the workshop from all sectors interested in seabirds and fishing. We light-heartedly estimated we collectively had around a 1000 years of relevant experience in the room!
Over the course of a day and a half we reviewed progress in addressing seabird bycatch both in NZ and overseas and identified the types of work that remained to be done. We identified the strengths and networks that the Southern Seabird Solutions partnership has, and the role it could most usefully play alongside other organisations currently addressing seabird bycatch. International seabird experts John Croxall, Marco Favero and Carlos Moreno provided an international perspective.
NZ Fisheries
The need to sort the seabird issue domestically was high on people’s agenda. NZ prides itself as “punching above its weight” internationally and has been at the forefront of a lot of useful mitigation research. But it was clear from Carlos’s presentation that other countries such as Chile are rapidly moving ahead. Carlos admitted NZ has a lot of different fisheries and is much more complicated than Chile (where there are only two fisheries that are known to kill seabirds), but the challenge has been made!
As Andrew Bond, Industry Liaison Manager, Sanford Ltd says, “Here in New Zealand we’ve made a lot of good strides in terms of seabird bycatch through codes of practices, raising the profile of the issue, trialling and implementing successful mitigation measures, stakeholders working more collaboratively, and, yes, through regulation. But there still appears to be a problem in some fisheries and there are still too many fisheries that we don’t know enough about. From where I stand it feels like we need to continue to clean up our own backyard, the job is not yet finished.”
During the workshop a member of the Trust's management committee presented a fishery by fishery assessment. There was general consensus that this type of assessment is a good approach and needs to be done more comprehensively since there are so many differences between fisheries.
International Fisheries
The workshop participants focused on those fisheries that overlap with NZ seabirds. As Carlos put it “you breed them, we feed them”. The main migration destinations are southern Africa, the western seaboard of South America, Argentina and Australia.
Participants heard about growing pelagic fishing effort in the high seas of the South Pacific Ocean and the risk this posed to the seven or so NZ seabird species that forage in these parts. The two key options discussed were directly approaching fishing companies or industry organisations operating in these fleets using NZ fishing company linkages or working through the Regional Fisheries Management Organisations.
Key Themes
One of the key themes to emerge from the workshop was the potential application of the Southern Seabird Solutions partnership model in other countries. There was discussion about the steps involved in “exporting the model” where appropriate. Participants recognised that it would be important to adapt the model to local situations.
Positive incentives were a second recurring theme. Participants suggested that incentives such as accreditation are a critical tool for reaching other fishermen and fleets.
A third theme focused on the importance of engaging with fishermen - from new entrants to seasoned veterans. Ideas for achieving this engagement ranged from workshops, to quality educational materials for fishing schools, to role model fishermen, to establishing an 0800 SEABIRDS phone number that could provide real-time expert mitigation advice to fishermen.
Participants agreed that there is a need for ongoing mitigation development. Equally important is making sure that fishermen are kept informed of new developments. Blogs, forums, email lists, and magazine articles were all mentioned as ways to communicate information.
Finally, participants agreed it was critical to “tell the stories", balancing stories about the issues that still remain and also where progress is being made. Participants also thought that there is a need to build greater general awareness about seabirds.
So, what next? Management committee members have been rolling the ideas from the workshop around in their heads for a couple of weeks now and we recently met to start fleshing out a tactical plan and our 2009 Business Plan.
Below: Carlos Moreno and Robin Hapi share a cuppa and their ideas on seabird bycatch at the workshop.
A technical side...
There was also a technical side to the workshop. Carlos described the Cachaloteras which he developed with fishermen to stop whales from taking the catch off of longlines in the Chilean toothfish fishery – as an added bonus the device also stops seabird bycatch. Graeme Bailey and John Reid were so impressed that they built a Kiwi prototype (thanks to Gourock for providing materials) at the workshop. John plans to work with Gourock in developing several more that he hopes to trial on certain vessels in Area 2 next year.
Hans Jusseit of Australia, an ex-tuna longline fisherman turned inventor, wowed participants with his Smart Hook System which should be on the market in mid-2009. The modified hook and shield prevents the capture of seabirds and turtles during the setting of longlines.
New Zealand fisherman John Bennett discussed the Kiwi Longline Setting Tunnel which was included as part of an overall retrofit on the autoliner Antarctic Chieftain. The tunnel allows baited hooks to be released closer to the water’s surface. Also as part of the retrofit, the baiting machine has been mounted on rubber to reduce line jerking (allowing the lines to sink more smoothly). JB also took a number of workshop participants on a tour of the vessel.
Below: Graeme Bailey and John Reid put the finishing touches on the Kiwi version of a Cachaloteras. Photo courtesy Fisheries Audit Services.
Juntos por las aves marinas en Sudamerica
Together for seabirds in South America!
The Trust and the Peruvian organisation Pro Delphinus have teamed up to develop a Spanish-language educational resource for fishers, school children and local communities to be used in port communities throughout Pacific South America and Argentina. The fact sheets will be chock-full of information about seabirds, current threats and ways to protect them. The project is being funded by the US-based Marine Conservation Action Fund, along with WWF-New Zealand and eco-tour operators Encounter Kaikoura.
Joanna Alfaro, Pro Delphinus, says, “The concept of this project is to adapt the Trust’s educational resource for South America. There will be a series of general fact sheets that will explore issues that are of importance to the whole region and also country-specific facts sheets for Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Ecuador that will highlight two to three species per country that are of particular concern or interest.”
In Peru, for example, where Spanish language environmental education materials are very limited, Pro Delphinus plans to use the fact sheets in the main fishing ports, with schools based in fishing communities and with Centro de Entrenamiento Pesquero de Paita (CEPP Paita/FONDEPES), a training school for fishers from different countries in Central and South America. The training school has specifically requested seabird information for them to use as part of their curriculum. This need is something that management committee member Dave Kellian was made keenly aware of when he visited the school as part of a Trust skipper exchange in 2006.
“Educational resources were also noted as a priority at the first South American Fishers Forum so it’s great that we’ve been able to secure the funds to make this important project a reality,” says Jeffrey Mangel, Pro Delphinus.
The goal is to have the fact sheets completed in early 2009. The resource will be available both as a printed resource and for download from the Southern Seabird Solutions Trust and Pro Delphinus websites.
Below: As part of a Trust skipper exchange programme, New Zealand fisherman Dave Kellian and Peruvian fishermen share ideas and knowledge about reducing seabird bycatch.
Seabirds get the limelight in Kaikoura
In September, the small town of Kaikoura, New Zealand, hosted an evening’s presentation by Tui De Roy and Mark Jones about their albatross adventures in the making of their recently published book – Albatross: their world, their ways. A gold coin collection for Southern Seabird Solutions Trust took place at the event.
As Annie Paterson, Tourism and Economic Development Officer, Kaikoura District Council, says, “The event turned out to be a real community celebration. Seabirds are an important part of Kaikoura’s past, present and future so it’s only fitting that Southern Seabird Solutions – an organisation dedicated to conservation measures to protect these birds – was selected as the recipient of proceeds from the event.”
ACAP work gains momentum
By Spencer Clubb
The Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels Advisory Committee (ACAP) held its Fourth Meeting (AC4) in Cape Town in August this year. The meeting was chaired by Dr Marco Favero. The Advisory Committee consists of representatives from Parties to ACAP, other range states and from non-governmental organisations. While the Trust was not directly represented, two management committee members, Rebecca Bird and I, attended the meeting in other capacities.
ACAP has an objective of achieving a favourable conservation status for albatrosses and petrels and covers both land-based and at-sea threats. In relation to at-sea threats, ACAP has produced tables summarising current knowledge on mitigation measures for trawl, demersal longline and pelagic longline fisheries, including setting out best practice measures, research priorities and knowledge gaps. Parties to ACAP are encouraged to use these materials to guide the development of policy and practice within the fisheries under their jurisdiction.
New Zealand is closely involved in a number of key projects that were discussed at the meeting, including engagement with Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (RFMOs), determining priorities for management action and capacity building. For example, New Zealand has led the development of a strategy for engaging with RFMOs, including using dedicated coordinators to develop and bring key messages and supporting material to RFMO meetings. This approach will be trialled for a range of RFMOs over the coming year.
New Zealand is also leading the development of a framework to guide priorities for management actions for ACAP and Parties. The framework will help ACAP to focus its resources on the most urgent and manageable threats.
In terms of capacity building, Tatiana Neves of Brazil presented a range of key capacity building projects for South American countries. The highest priority project was considered to be a workshop to improve data collection from observer programmes in South America.
ACAP will also be developing a more comprehensive capacity building strategy, focused on South America, but with input from other countries including New Zealand. This strategy will provide guidance to organisations such as Southern Seabird Solutions Trust on how best to make a difference to the conservation of albatrosses and petrels.
Learn more on the ACAP website.
News briefs
WWF-South Africa releases report
In late August, WWF-South Africa released Understanding and Mitigating Vulnerable Bycatch in Southern African Trawl and Longline Fisheries.
Samantha Petersen, Manager of WWF-South Africa’s Responsible Fisheries Programme, says, “While this information is valuable, it’s crucial that it translates into compliance with mitigation measures on the part of fishing operations.”
The report also describes the movements of two of the most common species caught in South Africa’s commercial fisheries – the black-browed albatross and white-capped albatross.
Read the report on WWF-South Africa's website.
Tracking Toroa
Massey University PhD candidate Bindi Thomas spent over a year tracking the movements of Toroa, the 500th chick hatched at the Taiaroa Head royal albatross colony. Toroa was one of three fledglings to be fitted with a lightweight satellite transmitter in September 2007.
One of the transmitters quit signalling after six months, but Toroa's and the female’s transmitted for a full year which Bindi says exceeded expectations.
"We speculate that the transmitters may have been lost when the feathers that the trackers were attached to moulted, but the reality is we will probably never know what happened," says Bindi. "Still, we were able to gain a lot of information about their movements over the course of the year."
Because juvenile royal albatrosses do not usually return to their colonies until they are five to eight years old we'll need to wait a few years before we know the fate of the three birds.
"It's been a little strange going from knowing Toroa's movements on a regular basis to having no sense at all of where he is," says Bindi. "I'll definitely be looking to the skies around Taiaroa Head in a few years hoping that all three albatrosses make it back to the colony to breed."
To learn more visit the Royal Albatross Centre website.
CCAMLR on seabirds
At the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) meeting held in October in Hobart, Australia, CCAMLR’s Scientific Committee discussed a range of topics regarding conservation in the Southern Ocean, including seabird mortality associated with fishing.
In the Scientific Committee’s report they noted the continuing low levels of incidental mortality of seabirds in regulated longline fisheries and relatively low levels of seabird incidental mortality in trawl fisheries in the Convention Area. In fact, 2007/08 was the third consecutive year that no albatrosses were observed killed in the longline fisheries in the Convention Area and the second year that the only seabirds observed killed longline fisheries in the Convention Area were within the French EEZ.
An estimated 1355 petrels were incidentally killed by the French longline fleet, which represents a 40 per cent reduction from the previous year. By adhering to a specific action plan to reduce seabird mortality, in the medium-term the French aim to achieve near-zero seabird incidental mortality, with a short-term goal of reducing seabird bycatch to less than 1000 next year.
In terms of other concerns, the Scientific Committee noted pelagic longliners in areas adjacent to the Convention Area may pose a serious threat to Convention Area seabirds. The committee also expressed concern about illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing (IUU) where effort appears to have shifted from longlining to gillnetting. The Scientific Committee is working on ways to better evaluate the potential incidental mortality of seabirds and marine mammals caused in IUU gillnet operations. Another issue that the committee looked at this year was the impact of marine debris on seabirds and marine mammals in the Convention Area.
To learn more visit www.ccamlr.org.
|
