The Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) has met for the first time under its new modernised convention where Greenland halibut was firmly on the agenda.
NAFO’s 39th meeting took place in Montréal, Canada where a new management strategy for Greenland halibut was agreed which involves the TAC for the stock being adjusted annually depending on the agreed Harvest Control Rule (HCR) from 2018 to 2023.
Also at the meeting, the organisation agreed to protect the entire New England Seamount chain, amending the boundary of the area closed to bottom fishing to include all peaks in the chain.
It said that the protection of the entire chain as a whole will help in sustaining the biological connectivity and function of seamount communities at all depths.
NAFO also agreed to a benchmark assessment of cod on the Flemish Cap in 2018. This benchmark assessment will explore the robustness of the current assessment model and evaluate alternatives including multi-species models, with a number of international experts being invited to review. This assessment aims to improve confidence in future assessments of this stock.
Also at the meeting, NAFO agreed to relaunch its second performance review, which will be completed by the next Annual Meeting in September 2018, and address issues such as conservation and management, compliance and enforcement and financial and administrative issues.
The organisation re-elected current President, Stéphane Artano (France in respect of Saint Pierre and Miquelon), for his second term and Temur Tairov (Russian Federation) was elected as vice-Chair.
