Prawn Sectoral Committee Meeting Report Coast Bastion Hotel, Nanaimo, BC 31 March 03 Thanks to Tom Orr for taking the time to prepare this report. MSC Certification Three speakers outlined the program for product certification. Three groups, represented by the three speakers are the Asia Pacific Environmental Exchange, the Marine Stewardship Council and the World Wildlife Federation. What is product certification? It is a claim made by the Marine Stewardship Council that the (in this case) prawn fishery deserves a stamp of approval that allows the public and buyers to know that the prawn by trap fishery has met or exceeded all the criterion for certification. What are the requirements or criterion? An exhaustive in depth assessment of every aspect pertaining to the fishery to ensure that it is sustainable and managed to be sustainable. What is the cost? Fifty to Seventy thousand for first assesment.(a very approximate guess) Yearly updates required to ensure certification. Who does the assessing? Between the three groups there are many resources at their disposal. Alaska Halibut is undergoing certification and now the Canadian Salmon Industry has almost concluded the initial assessment. What are the benefits? Sales to discriminating world- wide customers* and buyers alike who are in contact with the above groups. The benefit of an independent audit of the prawn fishery; stock assessment, management techniques...where aspects of the fishery could or must be improved, and an affiliation with ecological economic fishing as opposed to a target of eco groups. * Unilabour Seafood's is the largest buyer of seafood in the world. Company policy dictates seafood will only be purchased for resale from sustainable fisheries. Details for contacts and further information of the program may better be explained in the official minutes. LUNCH Harvest Agreements First Nation committee members reserved the right to comment....no comments at this time. The DFO "go between" FN and committee [no comments at this time] IANC negotiators could not make it to the meeting however there was a handout with FAQ's, Frequently Asked Questions, 2nd edition. There was an invitation extended to committee members to ask questions of J. Morrison to which he would seek a response. One question asked of the transferability of catch (with harvest agreements) from one geographical area to another. At this time there are no harvest agreements known to DFO on any active negotiating tables Sport Fishing Advisory Board There are now 2 representatives for committee. Wayne Harling and Sunny Nelsen (apologies for possible incorrect spelling of name) A detailed account of index sampling was explained to the committee by the SFAB member. The upshot was that the commercial fishery is leaving next to nothing for the sport fishers in these areas. DFO explained spawner index as an average over the years and that any one year sample could not produce a conclusion that nothing was left. The usual splash back and forth between committee members concerning sport and poaching definitions is well represented in the official minutes which were taken by a professional typist. Department of Transport Last years roll over gave way to comments from the DOT passed on to DFO legal services, Ottawa, and the local Marine Transportation Safety Board. A warning was issued concerning overloaded vessels or improperly loaded vessels, and a need to eliminate the incentive to overload vessels. Comments concerning this topic will be published in the 2003 Management plan. Note. There seems to be some confusion over a regulation. The interpretation of the regulation is not clear. It has to do with traps being transported on the grounds. If you have any question about using other vessels to transport your traps, please call J. Morrison at 1-250 756-7233. Sectoral Elections. It was decided that DFO will carry out the election process. A majo rity of caucus members want to pay for independent scrutineers to watch over the tally? This issue has not been approved by caucus but was offered during committee time when DFO refused to have members of industry scrutineer, as fleet privacy would be violated. Beth B. the area manager from North Coast related fleet concerns. The manager attended a North Coast meeting to pass these concerns to the committee members: 7am to 7 pm fishing times double hauling permitted spend enforcement money directed at DH to SI testing flexible payments to service provider for anticipated longer seasons more flexible management plan to allow later openings stop SI testing during maximum tides Test fisheries for Work Channel/ Kitimat alternative openings for the Humpback fishery These items may be more defined within the official minutes. Stock Assessment, Denis Rutherford Report on: QC Island exploratory test fishery, Double Ring Trap Evaluation and Rockfish By-catch Details of the QC Island exploratory fishery last year were made public. Areas tested were shown to be Inlets on the West Coast not fished in the past 3 or 4 years. Details may be extracted from the official minutes. Double Ring traps were evaluated again to rate them against the standard sac 30" trap. A complaint was raised to DFO from members of the fishing community that an unfair rating on the traps lead to early closures last year. ( a rating of 1.5 for example would mean that the service provider would be looking for the normal spawner index required plus half as much again. So if the required number of transitional was 6 per trap based on the standard, a double ring trap would require 9 transitional.) Information from DFO on the new rating has not been concluded at this time however committee members were informed that it will be significantly less than it was. Rock fish by - catch Information from DFO states that opinion has it that all rockfish brought to the surface (even though they swim away) die after a period of 2 weeks. The by-catch was measured on last years trap hauls as a protracted possibility high to a possible low,based on a true point count. The by-catch was considered low. A discussion later centered on the size of tunnel rings and the fact that they are not consistent within the fleet trap compliment. Again details of this report may be better found in the DFO minutes. Resources for the biological management of the fishery are described on every turn as "shoe-string" Testing for North Coast was requested, however details of how this will be accomplished (added work load) are yet to be worked out. As stated earlier DFO would like to have test fisheries for sampling done sooner than later, after the season. MERMAC [Community Futures] An organization co-coordinating Provincial resources? with Coastal Communities was introduced by Mark B., representing the interests of the marine community of Powell River. The topic of his concern for Powell River, was the possible introduction of ITQ's and the effect on the community ITQ's may have. A long list of short comings of ITQ's made relevant from examples around the world demonstrated to this speaker that ITQ's would negatively impact Powell River. Mark B. suggested to the committee that a two day seminar be set up to discuss management alternatives other than ITQ's, that a trust fund be set up to be used (presumably) for future management activities, and that this organization has asked for a seat on the PSC representing Coastal Communities. Caucus met briefly to discuss fees for this year. JOT's service provider fee went up for this year, however the fleet had a refund which amounted to some 70 dollars each. This refund will be applied to this years fishery reducing the cost to 1450. To cover any shortfalls caucus added another 5 dollars to the fee. it will be refunded next year if a surplus appears) So the J.O. Thomas bill will be $1455.00. The same amount for DFO is required as there was a surplus of some 10,000 from last year. That surplus will be held by the PPFA in a Bank account and only used for funds directed to DFO, as required from DFO. So the fees required by DFO for the Joint Project Agreement is unchanged at $435.00. PPFA fees for administration remain unchanged at $200.00 This figure may appear with the commitment to DFO as the sum of the last two figures...$635.00. The counter fee (licence access fee) has not changed and remains at $320.00 . So a total of 1455.00 + 435.00 + 200 + 320 = 2410 is being asked for this years fishing season. As mentioned , caucus had compromised to have industry scrutineers oversee the sectoral elections. When this item came up in meeting, DFO would only accept independent scrutineers. Caucus did not discuss the option of paying outside scrutineers from an accounting office so the issue of overseeing DFO tally the ballots remains with no conclusion. As stated with previous reports, this account may contain omissions and or errors. It is not intended to be the minutes of the meeting. It serves to present a timely account of the "bare bones" of the meeting to North Island members and anyone else that is interested. Have a safe and productive season. Tom Orr, North Island Prawn