Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna
Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna CCSBT Compliance Information Management: Current Practice/ Future Possibilities TCN II, Honiara, Solomon Islands 15 - 18 February, 2018
CONTENTS • Background information on CCSBT • Examples of how compliance information is processed/ used now • Consideration of how it could be processed/ used differently in the future • Conclusions
CCSBT: Setting the Scene • CCSBT manages only 1 species – Southern Bluefin Tuna (SBT) by a global TAC • It has no Convention Area • It manages SBT wherever it occurs globally • It has a Catch Documentation Scheme (CDS) • It receives only aggregated catch & effort and scientific observer data • It does not receive VMS data
Data for Compliance Purposes • The types of data CCSBT holds that can be used for compliance monitoring/ assessment include: o Catch Documentation Scheme (CDS) documents o Authorised farms, fishing and carrier vessels o Authorised validators (of CDS documents) o Monthly catch reports o Final annual reported catches o Transhipment data o Port inspection records o Members’ annual reports o Percentage observer coverage (no detailed data) o Scientific data for cross-checking/ verification
Catch Documentation Scheme (CDS) • The CDS is one of CCSBT’s primary compliance measures • It requires CDS documents to be filled out for farms, domestic landings, exports, imports and re-exports • Every single SBT must be tagged • The CDS is paper-based and includes many manual processes • Therefore, CDS administration utilises a high proportion of the Secretariat’s compliance resources • CCSBT has been exploring the possibility of moving to an
Volume of CDS Data Received * Preliminary figures Year No. of CDS Documents Received per Year Total No. Data Entry/ Filing Days Year No. of SBT Tagged per Year 2015 2858 30 2015 462, 966 2016 3243 35 2016 481, 234 2017 3121* 32* 2017 393, 572*
Authorised Vessel & Validator Data CURRENTLY • Linking in with the CDS, the Secretariat maintains records of: o Authorised Farms, Fishing and Carrier Vessels o Authorised validators. • Maintaining these records is a manual Secretariat process: o Updates are submitted by email as spreadsheets or pdfs (validators) o All are then uploaded to the database/ posted to website manually FUTURE • Beneficial if could be managed via an online tool, primarily by
CDS Documents: Other Manual Processes • Other manual CDS processes carried out by the Secretariat include: o o o o Down-loading and/or printing of CDS documents Data entry, filing and storage of CDS documents Uploading tagging data into the database Running the CDS reconciliation process (semi-automated) Manual verification of any issues identified Correspondence with Members about issues Manually processing of amendments. FUTURE o An e. CDS would ideally remove a lot of these manual CDS
Monthly Catch Reporting CURRENTLY • Each Member submits monthly catch report figures by email • The Secretariat: o Manually collates data into a monthly catch report spreadsheet o Sends email reminders as necessary o Emails the updated report to Members; places it on website. FUTURE • Members could access and update monthly report data via an online tool • Automated reminders could be sent as required
Members’ Annual Reports CURRENTLY • CCSBT currently has a WORD template for Members’ annual reports • It is updated regularly • It is available as a download on our website • Information from annual reports is used in other compliance summary reports Common Problem • Members sometimes use past versions of the template
Members’ Annual Reports FUTURE • It would be ideal to have a Member annual report template which: o Is available online o Can be easily updated by the Secretariat o Can be advance-populated with last year’s data (for some fields) o Is easy to complete/ has standardised selectable fields where possible o Can be saved/printed out o Facilitates information being automatically shared with/ populated into other summary reports/formats/tables e. g. compliance assessments
Transhipment Observer Data CURRENTLY • CCSBT shares a transhipment observer programme with ICCAT and IOTC • The programme is administered by the Observer Consortium/ MRAG • Also working to implement a Transhipment Observer Mo. C with WCPFC • Transhipment observer reports are WORD documents • They contain much useful information in text format including CDS document numbers/ tag numbers/ images FUTURE • It would be ideal to receive some of the information from transhipment observers via some sort of automated data feed,
Data Submission/ Tracking CURRENTLY • The CCSBT website has a data submissions information page – voluminous! • The page lists which items are to be submitted and when • The Secretariat: o Sends email reminders regarding most due dates o Uses internal spreadsheets to record when data have been submitted
Data Submissions Web Page
Data Submission/ Tracking FUTURE In future it would be useful if: • Each Member has a ‘dashboard’ where it can see: o what is due to be submitted and when, o What has already been submitted. • Requirements can be updated/added by the Secretariat • Requirements can be ticked off on the website once submissions are received • Automatically generated emails are sent regarding due/overdue items.
CCSBT’s Annual Compliance Assessment CURRENTLY • CCSBT does not have a formally defined compliance assessment process where issues are scored or categorised as compliant, partially compliant, non-compliant, etc • The Secretariat produces annual papers/ tables summarising compliance • These summaries require a lot of manual processing and analysis • This process is very time consuming FUTURE • During 2018 the CCSBT Secretariat is to research/propose a more structured compliance assessment process and associated measure
Annual Compliance Assessment QUESTIONS • Do other RFMOs already have something in place for this? • Is there scope to have a consistent, structured assessment approach across t. RFMOs? • Can current technologies be used to assist with this? • Can compliance data collected by online tools be designed to feed directly into compliance assessments?
Compliance Committee Meeting Reports CURRENTLY At meetings, the following process is repeated on a daily basis until report adoption: • Secretariat personnel separately draft different sections of the report • These are collated and a draft report is printed and distributed • Members provide amendments on the current draft by paper/ email • Member amendments are added (tracked) into the draft report by the Secretariat. QUESTIONS • How could this be done better in future?
CCSBT: SUMMARY • The Secretariat’s compliance work includes many manual processes • There are few on-line/ automated processes • Information is generally received/sent by email • There is a lot of scope to improve the efficiency of how CCSBT collects and processes data used for compliance monitoring/assessment • This is an opportunity to learn what tools are working well for other RFMOs and how these might potentially be applied in CCSBT POTENTIAL CHALLENGES Challenges to progress/ change could include: • The will of the Members
QUESTIONS?
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