The tenth workshop of the Scientific Committee (SCW10) was the third workshop of the Deepwater Working Group, which was held virtually, preceding the SC8 meeting, between 29 September and 2 October 2020.

The SCW10-Report is now available.

The discussion topics/schedule for the workshop were as follows: 

Session 1: Wednesday 30 September starting 8pm (NZDT) (Slot B)

• Introductions, technology, scope of workshop, rapporteurs etc
• Overview of content and analyses in the Bottom Fishery Impact Assessment
• BFIA section 4.2: Information on status of deepwater stocks to be fished
  • o Stock assessments (mostly for Orange roughy)
  • o Risk assessment for teleost fish stocks
• BFIA section 4.3: Interactions with marine mammals, seabirds, reptiles, other species of concern
  • o Reported interactions with marine mammals, seabirds, reptiles, other species of concern.
  • o Risk assessment for deepwater chondrichthyans
• BFIA section 4.4: Interactions with benthic habitat and VMEs
  • o Updating and testing habitat suitability models for VME indicator taxa

Session 2: Thursday 1 October starting 1pm (NZDT) (Slot A)

• Deep Sea Conservation Coalition papers
• BFIA section 4.5: Risk assessment for benthic habitats, biodiversity and VMEs
  • o Estimating the footprint of SPRFMO bottom fisheries
  • o Assessing current status of benthic communities: “naturalness”
  • o Relationship between habitat suitability and abundance of VME indicator taxa (NB from section 4.8.3).
  • o Assessing current and future status of benthic communities: relative benthic status
• High Seas Group perspective

Session 3: Thursday 1 October starting 8pm (NZDT) (Slot B)

• BFIA section 4.6: Mitigation, management and monitoring measures
  • o Spatial prioritisation for conservation, spatial decision support tool Zonation and changes since 2018
  • o Estimating the likely performance of current spatial management arrangements (“post-accounting”)
    • § Introduction and recap of 2018 approach to assessment.
    • § Re-assessment in terms of suitable habitat and abundance.
    • § Overall post-accounting results and sensitivity.

Session 4: Friday 2 October starting 1pm (NZDT) (Slot A)

• BFIA section 4.8: Key uncertainties, information gaps, and next steps with bottom fishery impact assessments
  • Stock assessment issues and the SPRFMO stock assessment framework
• Understanding risks to marine mammals, seabirds, reptiles, other species of concern
  • Advancing habitat suitability models.
  • Catchability of VME indicator taxa.
  • Climate change and other external risks
  • Other information gaps
• Other sections of the BFIA that require elaboration or other aspects of bottom fisheries that participants would like to see discussed (including but not necessarily limited to those identified in “other business”) 
• Implications of BFIA results for CMM03-2020
• Report adoption / process for finalising report to SC8