Allocation Estimations

Work Plan for allocation of fishing opportunities

During its 22nd Session (IOTC-2018-S22-R), The Commission agreed to the following Program of Work for the allocation of fishing opportunities (2018-2019):

1. Catch histories: The IOTC Secretariat shall provide estimates of each CPCs historical catch from 1950-2016, for albacore, bigeye tuna, skipjack tuna, yellowfin tuna and swordfish, to all CPCs for review, in accordance with:

• paragraph 15 of Proposal K Rev1 (proposal by 10 coastal states), or any subsequent revision provided to the IOTC Secretariat, no later than 15 June 2018 (Data). [Last update 06/02/2019]
• paper IOTC-2018-S22-INF01 (Proposal by the EU), or any subsequent revision provided to the IOTC Secretariat, no later than 15 June 2018 (Data). [Last update 18/02/2019]

2. The IOTC secretariat were then asked to develop draft terms of reference for the hiring of an independent consultant, to develop allocation models based on the documents referred to in point 1 above, or any subsequent revision (to be provided by the proponents as soon as practicable).

The independant consultant was subsequently selected by a vote amongst CPCs and communicated via the IOTC webpage to all parties.

In preparation for TCAC12, the TCAC requested that the Secretariat produce a template of a draft calendar that illustrates how the allocation process would be implemented over a normal year, as contemplated by the implementation provisions of the draft text which should include a draft timeline for the introduction of allocations for each species covered by the allocation regime. This calendar can be found here.

Ongoing communication and feedback

In December 2018, the secretariat received a revised proposal from 11 coastal states. This builds on the methodology proposed in Proposal_K_Rev1. This revised proposal can be viewed by clicking here. A further revision was provided to the TCAC05 metting in March 2019 (click here)

In order to conduct this work with the maximum possible transparency, all comments to this (and other) proposal(s), as well as preliminary estimations from the consultant will be uploaded to this page.

Preliminary Results

The first set of results for each proposal have been made available since the 14th of January 2019 while a second version was provided on the 6th of February. The consultants latest report can be downloaded by clicking here. [Last update 20/05/2019]

The Simulations can be downloaded below. Please note these results are very preliminary and are made available here for Member country feedback and discussion.

Simulations from the proposal from the Coastal States can be downloaded by clicking here [Last update 20/05/2019] with the simulation code available here. [Last update 06/02/2019]

Simulations from the EU proposal can be downloaded by clicking here [Last update 20/02/2019] with the simulation code available here [Last update 29/03/2019]. 

Shiny apps were developed to allow interested parties to interactively conduct simple simulations based on the proposals. The app is available for both the G16 proposal as well as the EU proposal (20/05/2019)

Progress on the elements of the Proposals

In an effort to accelerate and assist the work of the Technical Committee on Allocation Criteria (TCAC), the TCAC requested the Chairperson to develop a ‘three column’ document containing the elements of the two current proposals (i.e. two columns), and in the third column, a list of outcomes relating to elements that have been discussed, and in particular, any possible compromises or options on elements of the proposals, as well as matters that the Chairperson considers to be relevant and would benefit from being discussed. The Chairs cover letter to this work can be found here, while the table produced can be found here.