Notes of Meeting to Present the Results of the 2010 Hoki ERA held at Seafood Industry House, Cambridge Terrace,

Wellington, 30 June 2011

1. Welcome from the Chair Rick Boyd (Chair for the meeting) welcomed everyone in attendance and noted that the Agenda had been circulated prior to the meeting together with the 2010 hoki ERA final report, a report on the review of the ERA and a summary of the ERA and management response plan (these documents are attached as Appendix 1). He advised that the meeting will take these as being read to enable discussions to focus on outcomes and that he would be keeping brief notes of the proceedings which will be circulated following the meeting. A list of those in attendance at the meeting is attached.

2. Summary of Hoki ERA findings RB presented a summary of the findings of the 2010 hoki ERA using Power Point (Appendix 2). Discussion following the presentation covering the following points: Identification of risks to rare species.

It was noted that while the ERA Expert Panel had not specifically addressed the presence of rare species in bycatch, that such species were not known to be an issue in the hoki fisheries. A wide range of information and reports had been assembled and provided to the Expert Panel as a basis for its assessment. Members of the Expert Panel present at the meeting indicated that information from observer coverage of bycatch species was reasonably good. The use of BOMEC for the assessment of benthic risks.

It was noted that the ERA Expert Panel had recognised and discussed the limitations of BOMEC for its assessment of risks to the benthic environment at some length at the ERA workshop. The Expert Panel had concluded that this was the most informative tool currently available for use in the assessment in spite of its limitations. The Expert Panel had recommended that further information be obtained to ground-truth BOMEC, such as that expected to become available from the Oceans 20/20 project. Compressed time frame for the risk assessment/change of dates/limited number of experts on each topic.

It was noted that it had proven challenging to assemble a team of experts due to scheduling conflicts, some of which had arisen after commitments to dates had been given. It was not possible to have everyone who had an interest in these fields as members of the Expert Panel but the invitations to each organisation had expressly been open to enable broad participation from those attending the workshop. The Expert Panel was comprised of those who could reasonably be considered to be knowledgeable in all of the required fields and the Panel was able to complete a Level 1 risk assessment that provides an overall assessment of risks. A summary of all of the 1

available and relevant of information had been assembled and made available to the Expert Panel prior to the ERA workshop noting that while new information is constantly becoming available, it was clearly not possible to consider information that was not available at the time.

3. Summary of Seabird Risk Assessment for Hoki Fisheries The Expert Panel had not addressed seabirds in the 2010 hoki ERA, deferring to the results of a detailed Level 2 risk assessment of seabirds to commercial fisheries that had been completed through a Ministry research project. At the time of the hoki ERA workshop in December 2010, the draft final report of the seabird risk assessment had been submitted to MFish but was not available to the Expert Panel. MFish has now released the Final Seabird Risk Assessment report. Ed Abraham presented a summary of the seabird risk assessment results in relation to the hoki fishery (Appendix 3). A brief discussion following the presentation focussed on clarification of the results in relation to the contribution of the hoki fishery to the risks from all fisheries to affected seabird species.

4. Summary of ERA Review The ERA Review report had been circulated with the Agenda. George Clement advised that the MSC auditors, Moody Marine Limited, had recommended in their 2010 audit that DWG undertake a high level review of the ERA, that this had been undertaken by EnFocus Consulting Ltd and that their report had been circulated to participants to this meeting. The 2010 Audit had identified concerns by some stakeholder about the processes adopted for the 2010 hoki ERA. The Review addressed the adequacy of stakeholder involvement and the adequacy of the ERA to identify the key ecological risks posed by the hoki fishery. Overall, the Review concluded that the 2010 hoki ERA was adequate to identify the key risks from the hoki fisheries. A brief discussion followed, with the main point raised being the importance of providing time for consultation by experts within the ERA timeline and process so that the assessment could take into account all of the information and expertise available.

5. Proposed Management Response A document summarising the proposed management response to the ERA had been circulated. George Clement provided an update and asked for any questions or comments on the response plan. The discussion covered the following: Benthic habitats The additional GIS analyses for BOMEC 9 will be completed shortly. Rick Boyd will circulate the additional GIS information to the Expert Panel and seek confirmation of how they would like to progress.

The proposed response in the circulated document incorporated actions from two different processes the first is finalising the to be confirmed benthic assessment of the Expert Panel, and the second is work that will be ongoing. Discussion was held on the benefits of developing specific management objectives against which the risks of not meeting these could be assessed. Understanding the recovery rate from fishing impacts on benthic habitats was raised and the merits of whether or not this was relevant to management discussed.

Trophic The Chatham Rise trophic model was noted as being work in progress with a completion date of 2014 as some data was still to be collected for use in the model. Trawl surveys and indicator data from Chatham Rise and Sub-Antarctic areas are ongoing and useful, although alongside international comparisons, they are not necessarily very good as the time series are relatively short and in the Sub-Antarctic the surveys have not been undertaken every year. It was noted that being able to access only a single expert for the trophic assessment has limitations, and there may be value in involving a range of credible experts given the developing nature of this area of fishery science both here and internationally .

Fur seals Limited information exists on the population of fur seals in Cook Strait, what information is available is largely a result of adventitious data collection. Increased monitoring and observer coverage for the Cook Strait hoki fishery in 2011 was aimed at collecting better information and improving knowledge of fur seal interactions in this fishery.

Protected corals It was noted that a statement on page 28 of the ERA report that there is limited information on the spatial extent of coral distribution available for the hoki ERA assessment was correct, but that further information had been published since December 2010 that may assist with this assessment.

6. Other matters It was noted that a stock-take of all research on seabirds would be very useful in addressing seabird/fishery interactions for example having a central registry of research and the timeline for completion would significantly aid managers. The outcome of the Level 1 assessment would assist managers in identifying where further work was required. The Ministry of Fisheries was now responsible for undertaking future ERAs for all fisheries.

R O Boyd 04-07-2011

Attendance list Name Rick Boyd Andy Smith Bob Zuur David Middleton Edward Abraham George Clement Jeremy Helson Kirsty Woods Kris Ramm Laura Boren Malcolm Clark Michelle Beritzhoff Richard Ford Richard O'Driscoll Richard Wells Rosemary Hurst Tyler Eddy Organisation Boyd Fisheries Consultants Ltd (Chair for the Meeting) Talleys Fisheries Ltd WWF SeaFIC Dragonfly Deepwater Group Ltd Ministry of Fisheries Te Ohu Kai Moana Dept of Conservation, CSP Dept of Conservation, MCT NIWA Ministry of Fisheries Ministry of Fisheries NIWA Deepwater Group Ltd NIWA WWF

Attachments: Appendix 1 Documents circulated prior to the meeting a. b. c. d. Proposed Agenda ERA Discussion 300611 A4 2010 HOKI ERA_Final_Report_250311 Review of 2010 hoki ERA-May 2011 Final Summary of Updated ERA to Participants 020611

Appendix 2 Boyd, R. O. 2011 Summary of Findings Hoki ERA 2010. Power Point presentation 30 June 2011 Appendix 3 Abraham, E. 2011 Seabird bycatch in hoki fisheries. Power Point presentation 30 June 2011