Terms of Reference

Review the risk screening tool developed to assess and categorize the risk to target catch, bycatch and discards from the prosecution of Canadian fisheries

National Peer Review – National Capital Region

May 14-16, 2019
Montreal, Quebec

Chairperson: Gerald Chaput

Context

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) is currently consulting on a draft national fishery monitoring policy to ensure that DFO has dependable, up-to-date, and accessible fishery information to manage fisheries sustainably. Meeting this objective is essential to the long-term sustainable management of fisheries and is an important step in increasing the public’s confidence in the government’s stewardship of public resources.

Implementation of the new policy will involve evaluating the degree to which data on catches in individual Canadian fisheries are appropriate for determining whether fishery removals are sustainable for target and incidentally captured species/populations. The first step will be to evaluate the dependability of the catch data, that is whether they are of sufficient quality to conclude, with a predetermined level of certainty, when catch limits or data quality standards are reached. The results of a June 2017 National CSAS peer-review process provided a method and tool (Dependability Tool) for assessing dependability. The second step is now to develop an approach to set the required level of certainty for individual fisheries. In this approach, the level of certainty should be commensurate with the degree of potential risk to sustainability caused by fisheries, such that higher risk fisheries should be monitored in such a way as to produce low uncertainty. This applies to species that are targeted by fisheries as well as incidentally captured species, whether the catches are retained or discarded. To this end, a draft nationally consistent tool is being developed to facilitate and standardize these risk assessments (called the Risk Screening Tool, RST). The RST will define categories of risk, descriptors of each category of risk, and methods for determining a category of risk for each required attribute in the assessment. National Fishery Policy has requested that these categories, descriptions and methods be reviewed by the Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat (CSAS). In applying the new policy, the Risk Screening Tool and the Dependability tool will be used in combination to help guide decisions about the type and level of monitoring that is required in a fishery to meet the data needs of the Department.

This CSAS national peer review will not be assessing individual fisheries.

Objectives

A working paper will be reviewed at the meeting and will provide the basis for discussion and advice on the specific objectives outlined below.

The objectives of this meeting are to:

• Review the descriptors and methods within the draft Risk Screening Tool for assessing and categorizing the risk to target catch and bycatch species through the prosecution of Canadian fisheries. This risk analysis needs to provide categories of risk for the target catch and bycatch (both landed and discarded).
• Provide guidance on certainty thresholds (these scores are obtained from using the Dependability Tool to assess a fishery monitoring program) appropriate for each of the risk categories used in the Risk Screening Tool.
• Provide advice on how the Risk Screening Tool and the Dependability Tool can be used to inform decisions on modifying catch monitoring programs so that the required dependability can be achieved.

Expected Publications

• Science Advisory Report
• Research Document

Expected Participation

• DFO, Ecosystems and Oceans Science and Ecosystems and Fisheries Management sectors