This publication is intended to provide a range of stakeholders and interested parties with an understanding of orange roughy fisheries around the world. The report covers historical aspects of the regional development of orange roughy fisheries, biology, stock assessment, ecosystem interactions, and key management issues. Recent developments in science and approaches to management are specifically highlighted with respect to future management of sustainable deepwater orange roughy fisheries. The sustainability of orange roughy fisheries, or other fisheries for long-lived deepwater species, has been widely discussed. These reviews invariably draw on the common global experience of previous poor understanding about orange roughy productivity, rapid development of targeted industrial fisheries, the associated likelihood of overfishing and extended timescales for stock recovery, and an ensuing series of “boom and bust” orange roughy fisheries that frequently resulted in depleted stocks.

In this report, we explore potential options for storing and sharing pre-existing data collated for the Western Indian Ocean as part of the GEF ABNJ Deep Seas Project (‘the ABNJ Deep Seas Project’) Component 4 on area-based planning in ABNJ. This Project is jointly implemented by FAO and UN Environment, the Western Indian Ocean being one of Component 4’s two pilot study areas. However, the management of data is relevant across all the Components of the ABNJ Deep Seas Project.

In this report, we explore potential options for storing and sharing pre-existing data collated for the South-East Pacific as part of the GEF ABNJ Deep Seas Project (‘the ABNJ Deep Seas Project’) Component 4 on area-based planning in ABNJ. This Project is jointly implemented by FAO and UN Environment, the South-East Pacific being one of Component 4’s two pilot study areas. However, the management of data is relevant across all the Components of the ABNJ Deep Seas Project.

The study describes the governance landscape in ABNJ within the Western Indian Ocean and the South East Pacific with a view to understanding what progress has been made towards a collaborative and integrated cross-sectoral approach to area-based planning in ABNJ, and what potential challenges and opportunities exist when considering such an objective within these regions. The results of this study are designed to contribute to the UN Environment component of the GEF ABNJ Deep Seas Project, 1 which focuses on developing and testing area-based planning methodologies in ABNJ within the Western Indian Ocean and the South East Pacific.

This capacity assessment summarises the existing capacity of the Permanent Commission for the South Pacific (CPPS) Secretariat and member countries of the CPPS to undertake area based planning in ABNJ of the South-East Pacific Ocean pilot area. This includes their collective capacity to work within existing frameworks and with the competent bodies operating in ABNJ. It is based on the capacity assessment session run at the ABNJ GEF workshop in Guayaquil, Ecuador 7-8th November 2016.