Her Excellency the Honourable Barbara Baker AC

The Seventh Session of the Meeting of the Parties to the Agreement (MoP7) was opened on Monday 9 May by a welcome address from Her Excellency the Honourable Barbara Baker AC, the Governor of the State of Tasmania.

The Governor, after extending a welcome to the 12 Parties present and all the Observers (click here) attending the virtual meeting, noted in her virtual address from Government House in Hobart that: “It has now been over 20 years since a small group of nations met in Canberra, Australia and signed the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels.  I congratulate you all for your shared commitment and successes in conserving albatrosses and petrels since then.  The signing of this Agreement represented a clear and cogent response to the shared concern among nations about the significant losses of albatrosses and petrels as a result of incidental mortality in fishing operations, and threats facing these species at their breeding sites.”

She went on to note Australia’s and Tasmania’s roles in conserving albatrosses and petrels since the commencement of the Agreement, saying:

“As an island continent, Australia is proud to be an ocean nation.  We recognise the importance to the biodiversity of Australia, and Tasmania in particular, of albatrosses and petrels.

• Australia is home to 24 [of 31] ACAP-listed albatross and petrel species, with eight of these species breeding within Australia's jurisdiction.
• Australia’s coastal and sub-Antarctic islands provide critical habitats for our breeding populations of albatrosses and petrels with Tasmania’s Albatross Island, The Mewstone and Pedra Branca being home to Australia’s only endemic albatross species, the Shy Albatross.

Australia is committed to the conservation, protection and recovery of its threatened albatross and petrel populations. This is illustrated by:

• the successful Macquarie Island pest eradication program, delivered jointly by the Australian and Tasmanian Governments, that has eliminated rabbits, rats and mice from this sub-Antarctic location, with the Island's flora and fauna now enjoying markedly improved conditions
• successive Threat Abatement Plans addressing the threat posed by longline fishing and marine debris to seabirds, and albatrosses and petrels in particular successive National Recovery Plans that aim to improve the conservation status of albatrosses and petrels so that these species are no longer threatened in Australia's jurisdiction.”

Government House, Hobart, Tasmania, built in 1857

Her Excellency the Honourable Barbara Baker AC, the State of Tasmania’s 29th Governor, was sworn in at Government House in Hobart in June 2021. Two days previously she was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) for her service to the people of Tasmania through leading contributions to the law, to the judiciary and to the administration of justice, particularly in the area of family law, to professional legal organisations, and as a mentor and role model for young women.  The Governor graduated from the University of Tasmania in Hobart with a combined Arts/Law degree in 1980.  Her sporting achievements include playing hockey and tennis at state and national levels (read more here).

Her Excellency ended her address with the following words to the MoP7 attendees:

“The world is watching how you work together to conserve imperilled albatrosses and petrels.  The future of these species depends on your collective efforts.  I wish all participants at the Seventh Session of the Meeting of the Parties every success in ensuring there is a secure foundation upon which to advance the work of ACAP in the coming triennium.”

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 09 May 2022

 
Black-footed Albatross, by ABUN artist, Rosana Venturini for ACAP, black paper, coloured pencils and pan pastel; after a photograph by Lindsay Young

The Seventh Session of the Meeting of the Parties to the Agreement (MoP7) will be held virtually next week over four days, commencing on Monday.  A provisional meeting schedule may be found online.  The MoP will be chaired by Australia, with Mike Double, Chair of the ACAP Advisory Committee, acting as Vice Chair.  It follows on from the meeting of ACAP’s Advisory Committee (AC12) and two of its working groups last year, also held virtually due to travel and other restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.  ACAP last met in person at AC11 in Florianópolis, Brazil in 2019.  The previous Session of the Meeting of Parties (MoP6) was held in Skukuza, Kruger National Park, South Africa during May 2018.

Twelve of the 13 Parties to the Agreement are due to attend the MoP from their home countries or from their Australian embassies.  Observers at the meeting are expected to include Canada, United States of America, Chinese Taipei (attending as an APEC Member Economy), BirdLife International and Humane Society International; their observer reports are available online.  Other observers due to be present are Namibia, the Inter-American Sea Turtle Convention, the Australasian Seabird Group of BirdLife Australia, and the Brazilian NGO, Projeto Abatroz.  The ACAP Secretarial Staff will also be in attendance.

A provisional agenda for MoP7 includes hearing a report from AC12, itself reflecting reports from its Seabird Bycatch (SBWG10) and Population and Conservation Status (PaCSWG6) Working Groups, held over August/September last year.

All the documents pertaining to MoP7 are available in ACAP’s three official languages of English, French and Spanish from here.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 06 May 2022, updated 09 May 2022

uGear configuration on a New Zealand Snapper longliner; from the publication

The Conservation Services Programme (CSP) of New Zealand’s Department of Conservation works to reduce the impact of commercial fishing on protected species in New Zealand fisheries waters. Here is one of its most recent final reports.

The report’s summary follows:

“The introduction of mitigation standards for demersal longliners (MPI, 2019) and subsequent changes to regulation (MPI, 2021) have resulted in increased attention on sink times to depth and the depth of hooks at the end of the aerial extent of tori lines. Previous work has shown that sink times to depth vary with gear setup and position on line, as well as with environmental conditions (Goad et al., 2010; Goad, 2011; Pierre et al., 2013). However, for a given gear setup, times to depth for the slowest sinking part of the line show much less variation within and between sets (Goad, 2021).

The snapper-target demersal longline fleet deploy pre-baited hooks typically on 60 cm snoods. Hooks are stored on cards, usually containing 50 or 60 hooks and are clipped onto the longline during the set, separated by twine stoppers which are regularly spaced along a monofilament nylon backbone. The fleet employs a range of gear setups, and many vessels have faster-sinking variations for use at high-risk times. However, most vessels generally have no accurate measure of depth at the end of the tori line for different gear configurations, and limited time to experiment with variations to gear setup and tori line design to improve depths at the end of the aerial extent.

With a shift towards an outcome-based approach to regulating line weighting it is necessary to better understand sink times to depth for different gear configurations, and to communicate to fishers the options available to meet the prescribed depth at the end of the tori line.”

Reference:

Goad, D. & Olsen Z. 2022.  Measuring sink rates of a range of line weighting configurations in the snapper longline fishery.  BCBC2021-03 final report prepared by Vita Maris for the New Zealand Department of Conservation, Wellington.  18 pp.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 05 May 2022

 
Waved Albatross at sea, a species that occurs in Peruvian waters

Joanna Alfaro of the Peruvian NGO ProDelphinus writes to ACAP Latest News:  “It is my pleasure to share with you a guide on safe handling and release of Endangered, Threatened and Protected (ETP) species for purse seine fisheries; our small contribution for marine conservation and sustainable fisheries.  It was a pleasure to work on this document with the team in ProDelphinus and several fishers who shared their traditional knowledge for this guide.  The guide has already been launched at a meeting with over 300 purse seine fishers, and we hope to continue sharing it with more fishers.”

Mi post es para compartirles un documento que ame pues es un granito de arena a la conservacion marina y las pesquerias sostenibles, pero tb por que estuvimos en esto junto con un equipo maravilloso en Pro Delphinus. Calientita les dejo la Guia de Liberacion y Manipulacion de Fauna Marina en cerco pesquero. Se agradece de antemano las descargas y compartidas.

La guia le presentamos ante 300 pescadores industriales de cerco, esperamos poder seguir presentandola.

With thanks to Joanna Alfaro Shigueto. ProDelphinus, Peru.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 04 May 2022