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The 7th International Fisheries Observer and Monitoring Conference (7IFOMC) will be hosted by the Chilean Instituto de Fomento Pesquero (IFOP, Institute for Fisheries Development) over 8-12 April 2013 in Viña del Mar, Chile with the vision "[t]o develop, promote and enhance effective fishery monitoring programs and use of technologies to ensure sustainable resource management throughout the world's oceans".

The First IFOMC was held in 1988 in Seattle, Washington, USA, organized by the USA's National Marine Fisheries Service and Canada's Fisheries and Oceans (click here for its Proceedings).  Since then there have been six conferences, with a progressive increase in the number of countries represented and delegates attending.

Observer programmes are essential for the collection of biological and fisheries data to generate the knowledge base necessary for the conservation management and sustainable development of fisheries.  Observers in a number of fisheries are also responsible for collecting data on non-target by-catch by fisheries such as seabirds, notably ACAP-listed albatrosses, petrels and shearwaters.  They may also report on the level of compliance with deploying mitigation measures, such as bird-scaring streamer lines.

Click here to access the conference themes, which include considering how fishery monitoring programmes can support an ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management:

"Internationally fisheries management organizations have been directed to move towards Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management (EBFM).  In its basic form EBFM includes accounting for all sources of mortality imposed on a species (catch accounting), impacts from fisheries on all species (bycatch), ecosystem components and habitats (Benthic impacts) and demonstrating adherence to the precautionary approach. More broadly EBFM may include monitoring of mean trophic level, species diversity, species distributions and size spectra in impacted ecosystems."

Albatrosses cluster around a Patagonian trawler
Photograph by Juan Pablo Seco Pon

Abstracts for 7IFOMC may now be submitted, with a deadline of 30 September 2012.  Plenary sessions during 7IFOMC will consist mostly of panel discussions selected from those who have submitted abstracts on each programme topic.  There will also be poster sessions.

With thanks to Jorge Azócar R., Highly Migratory Species Monitoring Program (HMSMP), Instituto de Fomento Pesquero, Valparaiso, Chile for information.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 10 July 2012