50. It was agreed that the proposed catch and effort sampling protocol would be circulated to relevant parties as a default guide for data collection. It was agreed that this process would be facilitated by the provision of a "default" logbook that operators who were not required by national regulations to record fishing operations data could use. It was agreed that a possible log book design be developed, which would be circulated for comments and revision.
51. It was agreed that until direction was provided by a future fisheries commission for the area, individual national authorities should be the repositories for data recording the activities of their flag vessels in the study area. FAO was requested to contact national authorities in the case of countries where it was uncertain if the data was being appropriately archived to advise them of the future expected management procedures and data requirements.
52. It was agreed that a future technical meeting would be necessary to assess available information and undertake appropriate analyses of the data. These endeavours should lead to the identification of the requirements for future stock assessment. To facilitate this it was suggested that the information that is available for orange roughy, alfonsino and related fishery species be collated into a publication, possibly in a FAO Fisheries Technical Paper or a FAO Fisheries Circular, and if possible, funded by the FAO Fisheries Department.
53. It was agreed that a data collection protocol should be prepared that vessel operators would be asked to use to collect information on the nature of their catch. It was agreed that commercial operators would be asked to measure the length of 100 fish of the target species (i.e. orange roughy and, or, alfonsino) per day and record their sex. This would be the basic level data collection protocol (a detailed description of data to be recorded will be given in the full report). A more detailed protocol would include weighing the fish and providing an indication of the state of the gonads for females. It was recognized that obtaining this information might be more difficult.
54. The meeting noted with great interest the existence of the fisheries programmes in the GEF framework. It was considered the area of the Southwest Indian mid-Ocean Ridge would be imminently suitable for an integrated survey to examine the oceanography, fauna and flora and its bio-diversity, bottom topography, benthos and fisheries.
55. The existence of the Global Environmental Facility was noted. Their programme undertakes large-scale environmental research programmes and increasingly is looking to strengthen the fisheries components in its projects. It was noted that the GEF is currently executing a large-scale marine environmental programme in the Benguela current, with activities based in Namibia. The view was expressed that the Southern Indian Ocean could well provide an acceptable area for such a programme. Participants at the meeting expressed considerable interest in this possibility. It was agreed that a possible programme would focus on the marine ecology of the mid-oceanic ridge, rises and seamounts in the study area. It was agreed that attempts should be made to find out more about this possibility and the results reported back to a future possible meeting, if not to the meeting planned for September in Madagascar. The FAO Regional Fisheries Officer agreed to determine what, if anything, is happening with the coastal states of the study area in this regard.
