The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) has issued advice on fishing opportunities in 2016 for southern horse mackerel, anchovy, and sardine stocks in the Northeast Atlantic.
To accompany the new advice, ICES will publish a supplementary document that presents the context of and approach to advice in an understandable and transparent way. It will be followed by a set of more technical guidelines later this year.
Eskild Kirkegaard, Chair of ICES Advisory Committee (ACOM), said: “ICES produces advice that is based on the best available scientific knowledge and is characterised as unbiased and politically neutral. To fully understand the advice, it is important that the reader knows the context under which it has been developed. The introduction which we have issued gives this context and explains the approaches used in the advisory process. It is my hope that it will serve its purpose and make the process even more transparent.”
ICES’s updated introduction outlines the international agreements and policies that form the background of the advice before explaining the advisory products and processes, the ecosystem and precautionary approaches, catch advice and fishing opportunities, as well as providing information on the Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) rule.
The new addition to the advice follows on from adjustments made earlier in the year to the format of recurrent advice deliverables – ecosystem, fisheries, and fish stock for each of the Northeast Atlantic ecoregions.
ICES has offered advice for more than 150 stocks so far this year.
