Newsletter TXOTX 01

Technical eXperts Overseeing Third country eXpertise TXOTX. 1st Newsletter - July 2009

Management

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News

lthough the TXOTX project started officially on the 1st of April, the contract signature was delayed until the 22nd of September 2008. This caused some operational problems for some partners with regards to justifying the initiation of the work before the contract was signed. Hopefully, this time lag between the official start and the contract signature will not cause many problems and we will be able to finish all our commitments by the end of the project.

As soon as the project was signed, all partners received the pre-anticipation of the budget. It is worth pointing out that the contract states that the budget will be distributed for each reporting period (mid-term project).

Consortium Agreement (CA) The Consortium Agreement (CA) between the project participants was signed soon after the contract signature. The commitment and contractual matters for all participants are specified in the CA. One of the first management tasks was the preparation of the kick-off meeting. The kick-off meeting was held in AZTI-Tecnalia Pasaia (Gipuzkoa, Spain) on the 7th and 8th of April 2008.

The first day, we learned about the participating institutes as well as the specific objectives and activities within the workpackages (WPs) and case study areas. These presentations can be found on the TXOTX Wiki. The following days were used to plan the activities and to identify further issues to be addressed within the first year of the project.

Furthermore, in the kick off meeting we agreed on the following issues and plan of work. During the discussions on the WPs tasks, the importance of close collaboration and fluent

Welcome greetings from the coordinator As we are working to contribute to a coherent coordinated approach towards research directed at assessment and management of marine resources, the intention of this newsletter is to summarize the main actions and the progress achieved during the first year as well as to underline the main actions to be carried out during coming months. The next two years will be a busy but also exciting time for conducting the project.

Without doubt the TXOTX team will work together to fulfil our tasks and successfully achieve the project goals. I hope that the initial group of scientists can increase, including additional partners as well as creating a point of departure for future projects and successful cooperation. It was a great pleasure meeting most of you personally during the kick-off meeting here in AZTI. I am looking forward to working with all of you for a fruitful collaboration. The activities have already started, so let’s focus on the work!

communication between partners to achieve the diverse goals became clear. In the case of the core WP containing the 3 case studies proposed, the internal linking and transfer of results will be discussed and the iteration process will be started at the planned workshop under WP 2 “review of management areas” to be held in London between 18th and 22nd of January 2010.

As far as we know, some case study groups may have decided to hold smaller focussed web-based meetings/workshops before that date.

TXOTX. 1st Newsletter - July 2009

of the possibility of organizing the final expert workshop as a special Theme Session during the ICES Annual Scientific Conference or in conjunction with another International Fishery Agency. It was agreed that it would be possible and a good opportunity to consider depending on dates and availabilities of resources.

On the other hand, publications in journals, presentations at conferences or other broader dissemination initiatives are welcomed and it is requested that the coordinator be informed about planned publications and dissemination activities to enable their upload to the web and the Wiki and with regards to the report of project activities to the EU. Each publication, presentation and other written information must mention EU funding, as stated in the Consortium Agreement.

Communication During the kick off meeting a list of experts/regions as well as persons responsible for contacting them was created. It was agreed that this is a major milestone of the project since it will form the basis for further analysis within WP 2 and the synthesis WPs. The general framework of the questionnaires was also agreed as well as the format and content of the output report to be gathered by case study.

Communication within the project is ensured by several different methods. The website is already set up for internal and external communication. The TXOTX Wiki page is also ready for internal communication and will be the preferred tool for the distribution of data and information between the WPs and case studies. Both tools will also allow monitoring of the progress and completion of the work plan as all the reports, deliverables or other interesting information will be posted as soon as they are produced. In addition to the website and wiki, the TXOTX Google group has been created to serve as a forum for discussion for the TXOTX scientist network. These tools as well as a yearly newsletter will be the main pathways to ensure sufficient information flow among the participants.

The project leaflet, based on text from the technical annex but aimed at the broader public, has been completed and is available on the webpage and Wiki page. The leaflet has been distributed among partners for maximum distribution amongst different actors and stakeholders. The web-based distribution of the pdf version of the leaflet will be also carried out.

Networking Networking is a key component for building a coherent group of organisations and fishery experts that recognise the value of cross region/area collaboration and integration of research related activities. In this sense, it was agreed that the TXOTX project should enlarge its network to include relevant bodies covering all regions and fields of expertise. This will be done by updating, the list of researchers/experts/observers. This shall also be expanded to consider the liaison and collaboration with other EU projects of FP 6 & 7 or with projects financed by the EU Development Fund.

It was agreed to prepare a common PowerPoint presentation of the TXOTX project (objectives, plan of work, etc.) to be presented during the next meetings of each of the RFMOs involved/identified by the project. Moreover, a list of meetings/ RFMOs that project participants will attend was produced in order to present the project.

Publication A publication was proposed to publish the outputs from the 1st year and final experts’ workshop as a special volume of any journal (e.g. ICES Journal). This item was also discussed in light

The project leaflet

TXOTX. 1st Newsletter - July 2009

Time & Venues of Next

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meeting/workshops

roject meeting 2 (scheduled for month 7) was finally carried out in February 2009 (month 10) and was undertaken by means of telephone conference calls. These were organized according to case study and facilitated the coattendance of all partners around the world.

It has also been agreed to have the 18 month project meeting during the first week of October in Pasaia. The objectives of this 2 and a half day meeting will be to review and assess the progress of the work plan for year 1 as well as to define the work plan for year 2. Similarly, it would be a good opportunity to discuss preliminary questionnaire results and to focus on further work in preparation for the January workshop.

The WP2 workshop has been delayed until the last week of January 2010 (month 22 of the project) due to the delay of the contract signature and also due to the complexity of the task.

As the completion of this task will be a key milestone for further progress of the project the dates have been decided with careful consideration of providing time to revise and complete the questionnaires. The meeting will be held in London between 18th and 22nd of January 2010.

TXOTX

activities

Communications Website launched: Since April, TXOTX is online! http://www.txotx.net In addition, a wiki page will be used for internal information exchange (for a password contact project coordinator). http://wiki.azti.es/txotx/doku.php A discussion TXOTX forum has been also created to discuss hot topics and progress of the project. http://groups.google.com/group/txotxproject

Dissemination The project has been presented by: Hilario Murua at the meeting of the Long Distance Regional Advisory Committee (LDRAC) of the European Union, 2nd April 2008 Madrid (Spain).

Hilario Murua at the meeting of EU tropical tuna fishery observer program, 9th April 2009 Banyuls sur le Mer (France).

Paul de Bruyn at the meeting of Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) 9th Stock Assessment Review Meeting, 14th May 2008, La Jolla (USA).

Phil Large in NAFO headquarters at Halifax in June 2008.

Hilario Murua at the meeting of Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) Scientific Committee (SC), 4th December 2008, Mahe (Seychelles).

Leaflets were distributed and a poster was deployed at the last joint tuna RFMO meeting in San Sebastian (29th of June – 3rd of July 2009).

Paul de Bruyn visited the headquarters of IATTC in La Jolla and the State University of Louisiana between 27th and 31st of July.

Website and wiki page

TXOTX will be presented at the Permanent Committee on Management and Science of the NEAFC in London (28th and 30th of September in London).

Our team in Pasaia, April 2008

Outlook ICES ASC 2009 The TXOTX project will be informally presented by project participants attending this meeting. A project leaflet will be distributed during coffee breaks as well as in different session rooms.

Next project meeting Next project meeting will be held between 6th to 8th of October in Pasaia (Spain) to review the progress of the first reporting period and plan of work for the second year. A preliminary revision of the review process in each case study will be done and further corrections/information needed, will be identified in order to prepare the workshops.

The workshop on the review of different management areas will be held in London between 18th and 22nd of January 2010.

Tuna RFMOs meeting in San Sebastian Between 29th and 3rd of June 2008 San Sebastian hosted the Second Meeting of the Tuna RFMOs. IATTC, ICCAT, IOTC, WCPFC and CCSBT representatives were present together with delegates of 50 countries. They analysed the evolution of fishing activity in connection to the agreements reached in the first tuna RFMO meeting held in Kobe (Japan). Most of the debate focused on the issue of overcapacity in the tuna fisheries.

Agreements have not been reached on this issue due to the divergent position of developed and developing states that see the problem in a very different way. Developed states claim for a freezing of capacity building, whilst developing coastal states claim the right to expand their capacity in order to exploit their resources for the sake of economic development. In addition, a call was made to elaborate a global register of IUU vessels and to improve science advice to incorporate risk and uncertainty in decision making. Special attention was placed in the conservation of sharks in the diverse tuna RFMOs particularly in the improvement of the measures to ban fins cutting and retention on board of especially vulnerable sharks.

Wanted: Your Contribution If you have any information about relevant achievements, first results, etc. within TXOTX, or interesting news about other projects, developments, etc. that are relevant for our project work, please send a short text to me (hmurua@azti.es), so that it can be presented to all, either on the website (intranet) and/or the next issue of this newsletter. Similarly, any interesting paper related to research coordination or assessment/management of shared stocks relevant for TXOTX community is welcome.

For the design of the website and other TXOTX publications, it would be very helpful to have a collection of photos of the relevant fisheries and areas. So if you have such photos that could be used free of charge, please send them to me. Finally, I would very much appreciate it if you could send me your feedback and your comments, amendments and tips for future issues of the newsletter,

Thanks and enjoy TXOTX!