The feasibility and challenges of collecting Electronic Monitoring System (EMS) data on French purse seiners in relation to IOTC minimum standards

During the last years, Electronic Monitoring Systems (EMS) have been progressively tested and implemented in tuna fisheries as a complementary tool for scientific observer programs. All tuna Regional Fisheries Management organizations (t-RFMOs) are now developing minimum standards that can be used as guidelines to fulfil specific fisheries management resolutions in each area of competence including Regional Observer Scheme (ROS) requirements. The first EM standards for Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) were discussed in WGEMS meetings and were adopted this year based on previous RFMOs and countries experiences. Each tuna fishery willing to use EMS including purse seiners in the Indian Ocean is now invited to follow the minimum standards for data collection that were proposed in the new Resolution 23/08. However, with the diversity of fisheries, vessels configuration, programs advancement and the limits of the method itself, EM minimum standards monitoring goals (which are initially based on ROS onboard observation programs) are sometimes challenging to fulfil.

The aim of the present document is to review the French purse seine EMS program and to discuss the feasibility and challenges to comply with the minimum standards for scientific data collection on tropical purse seine fleets of the Indian Ocean. This document reports on the shared experience of scientists, fleet managers, EM analysts and EM providers with the current EM installation covering the French tropical tuna purse seine fleet. Here, we review each ROS scientific fields against the ability of the vessel EM configuration to collect the information. This includes data collection on fishing activity, discards and handling and release of ETP species that is currently undertaken routinely and data collection on retained catches and FAD activities that is currently in test. Lessons learned from past experience are used to identify minimum standards that can be collected via EMS with sufficient data quality for IOTC data collection from those that might demand improvement or alternative data collection methods.