Meeting report
Medits General meeting
Paris, 28-30th November 1996

A Medits general assembly met in Paris on the 28-30th November 1996. The co-ordinator (J. Bertrand) welcomed the participants (cf. list below) and made the apologies for some colleagues, particularly from the Balkan countries, who intended to participate but who were unable to join the meeting. He also informed the assembly that Alain Laurec (Director in the EC-DGXIV) and André Forest (Director of the Fisheries Resources Department in Ifremer) will join the meeting the last day.

List of participants

* Sub-groups contribution (28/11/96): A: fish, B: crustaceans, C: cephalopods, D: selectivity.

The co-ordinator thanked the director of the Oceanographic Institute for his hospitality in its very nice building. He briefly reminded that the Institute has been created in 1906, with the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco by the Prince of Monaco Albert the 1st to diffuse knowledge on seawater and marine ecosystems. He also thanked all the scientists involved in the programme for the very good work done to achieve the ‘96 survey and to manage very cautiously and quickly the basic data from this survey, as well as for the specific contributions prepared for this meeting.

The meeting progressed on the agenda presented below.

It was reminded that the Medits 96 data had been received in Ifremer-Sète by the end of September due to the effective contribution of each of the teams involved in the programme. Then, the standard estimates of biomass indices and length-frequency distributions, for the reference list species and all the different areas, had been sent to the members of the Steering Committee by the end of October.

The analysis of the Medits 96 data has been conducted at two levels: by region and globally for the whole area. The analysis at the regional level had been prepared by each team before the present meeting. The resulting regional reports have been circulated during the meeting. Then, the regional co-ordinators pointed out some particularities observed during this survey, compared with the previous ones.

Along the Spanish coasts, a relatively high abundance of small pelagic species (Sardinella, young Anchovy) was noted in the ‘96 survey. In the South Western part of Italy, very few juveniles of red mullet have been observed. Along the South Eastern coasts of Italy, different variations have been observed, as a decrease of abundance for Micromesistus poutassou and an increase for Aristeus antennatus. In the Adriatic, the enlargement of the survey to the Eastern part of the sea (along the Balkan coasts) strongly modified the global estimates on density and biological parameters for different species. In the Aegean Sea, it was noted that the number of stations had been increased and the work at sea had been shared between two vessels. The importance to separate the Argosaronic Gulf and the South Aegean Sea in the analysis was also highlighted. In the South Aegean Sea, it was mentioned a relatively low abundance of juveniles of different species in the shallow waters.

It was also noted that the coefficients of variation (CVs) of the biomass and abundance indices for the commercial species were sometimes very high in 1996. The group has been invited to make a general comparison of these coefficients during the second part of the exercise, during the global analysis of the results of this survey.

Different teams asked for the introduction of new codes in the FM coding list. The references for these new species will be checked between the requesting laboratories and A. Souplet, before the introduction of these new codes in the final official FM list validated for the Medits 96 survey.

As the species Eledone moschata can be important for the fishery in some areas like Adriatic Sea and Aegean Sea, it was decided to add this species in the reference list from the Medits ‘97 survey onwards.

Analysis at the scale of the whole Medits area have been conducted during the meeting by three sub-groups, respectively for fish, crustaceans and cephalopods. Each of these groups elaborated a report (Annex I) which will be included, with the regional reports, in the 1996 annual report of the project.

The debate in the general assembly concluded to the following aims. Referring to the first recommendation, two technologists (L. Fiorentini and P.Y. Dremière) have been invited to propose to the general co-ordinator a form for a survey, before the end of the year. The general co-ordinator will be in charge of its distribution among the regional co-ordinators. The survey should be finalized by the end of January.

The assembly agreed that intercalibration is a very important scope on which the group should have to progress to support the biological analysis of the Medits data (see also the Scalisi’s proposal below). But as the cost of a specific intercalibration programme should be very high, it was recommended to produce first analysis using existing data from hauls done by different operating units in homogeneous areas.

It has been confirmed that a proposal to build a Medits data base had been presented to the last DG XIV’s Call for proposals (May 1996), with the references defined by the Data base group (cf. Elba meeting). The co-ordinator (of this project C-Y Politou, NCMR) is waiting for the final decision of the Commission concerning its support.

The Medits group considered as very important to develop further analysis to fully take advantage of the existing Medits data. It was also pointed out that some analysis should take advantage from collaboration between the different teams concerned by the different subareas or using different complementary methodologies.

The aim of this part of the meeting was to introduce a discussion on analytical approaches not yet used in the Medits programme, in view of their potential application at a global Medits scale and to favour contacts between scientists interested by the same kind of questions. As shown in the list below, different topics have been introduced during the meeting. A summary of each of the proposals is presented in the Annex III of the report.

Scientists interested to work on these different themes have been invited to contact the authors of the proposals to study the possibility of joint work. They were also invited to suggest other kinds of works (for instance, for analysis on groups of species as crustaceans, etc.). The resulting intentions should be presented to the main co-ordinators by the end of this year.

The assembly had been informed about the progress of the project of symposium conducted by the Co-ordination committee. A summary of the available information is presented in Annex IV. For the time being, it was expected that this meeting would take place by the end of 1997 or in the early 1998. The final date should be set for the next Medits meeting. Concerning the place of this symposium, the Co-ordination committee had carefully consider the invitation offered by our Croatian colleagues. But it had estimated that it was better to choose a more central place in the Medits area to favour the participation of a larger amount of scientists. For this reason, the Committee has invited the Italian team to propose an easily accessible site in Italy.

As the present project is organised till the end of 1997, the co-ordinator explained that it was time to think about the future of the programme, because new proposals should be done during the first quarter of 1997. For this discussion, the participants considered different information get from the European Commission officials, and particularly the views expressed by A. Laurec at the last STCEF meeting (Annex V). Then, they highlighted three main aspects of the Medits programme.

1) The participants agreed to consider that the master plan by which the programme is managed is very effective, including almost all the laboratories working on demersal fisheries in the area, and especially some from non EU member countries. Furthermore, the experience shows that the group is largely open to collaboration with other scientists interested to join it on its terms of reference and that its members have strong links with other groups, particularly international organizations like CIESM and GFCM. The participants considered that it should be very useful to maintain this node of organization, inside the general network of groups existing in the Mediterranean area.

2) The participants recognized the main importance of the knowledge of the exploitation patterns for fisheries management. But they considered that the generalization of indirect methods for resources assessment at a global level in the Mediterranean is presently limited by the bad quality of fisheries statistics, particularly for the demersal fisheries. They pointed out that the more relevant approach presently accessible to assess the demersal resources at a global level remains trawl surveys. They also considered that the Medits protocols constitute an optimum within the present constraints. Finally, they strongly recommended to maintain these surveys as a support of the management of demersal resources in Mediterranean.

3) During the first years of the Medits programme, the scientists mainly worked on the organisation of the data collecting system. By now, owing to the competencies developed in the different laboratories, the group intends to favour works on data analysis, particularly on topics useful for the fisheries management. As suggested through the proposals identified above, this should be done simultaneously by different ways and at different levels. These works could be funded by existing resources, concerted actions or specific projects according to the advisability. Whatever the organization may be, the scientists were strongly invited to inform the Co-ordination Committee on their intention (cf. the chart on diffusion of the Medits data).

These general views have been discussed in a special session with Alain Laurec (Director, DG XIV). Alain Laurec expressed that he was happy to see the dynamics created by the Medits programme in the Mediterranean, and especially the collaboration developed with third countries. He indicated his worry about the Medits‘s data base. He highlighted that a common data base open to all the scientists involved in the programme would be necessary to avoid that different subgroups work in double.

Then, A. Laurec expressed his fear that, with the importance allowed to the direct methods, too much scientists would take no further interest in basic works on landing data collection. He emphasized that the DG XIV was in charge of fisheries management and not for basic research. He reminded that the central question for the managers is the overcapacity of the fishing fleets, and therefore the need to prove the existence of overfishing. The final aim is to go, as well as possible, towards a management of the fishing effort instead of a simple reduction of the number of boats. The wish of the Commission is to support a complete package useful for these goals. From this point of view, he considered that, if there was no sampling data on landings, the Medits data would be unnecessary for the managers. He invited the Mediterranean scientists to urge a reflection towards this global approach.

He also informed the group that the Commission is preparing a new organisation for the collection of basic data for fisheries management. The idea is to move from yearly calls of proposals to a kind of contract between the Commission and the member States themselves. The data to collect in this schedule will be defined with the STECF. The data should be validated by cross-checking procedures.

During the discussion, the scientists agreed with the need for a global view of the fisheries. They reminded that, in different regions along the Mediterranean coasts, some experiments have been conducted to assess the fishing activity by sampling. The results were very variable. Generally, it appeared that biological samplings could be done with consistency only when managers have an actual will to support a system of statistics. Furthermore, in some areas, scientists had encountered real difficulties to access the fish to sample. These experiments mainly pushed biologists in the Mediterranean to look at direct methods which produce the best independent estimate on the state of the demersal resources, for now. It was also highlighted that this approach gives very interesting information on the evolution of some ecological parameters, which are also important indicators to be considered for fisheries management, particularly in multispecies fisheries.

In conclusion, it was agreed that the scientists will have to contribute to the necessary reflection for a more global approach on the basic parameters required for the fisheries management in the Mediterranean. For the near future, it is advised that the Medits group will propose a project to continue the programme, including a new trawl survey, for 1998.

Some provisional deadlines have been identified for the activity of the Medits group in the end of 1996 and in 1997, as below.

• Files with data for the annual report (SCM>GC) 07/12/96
• A form on the gear using practices (Technologists >GC) 31/12/96
• Intentions for data analysis (Scientists >CCM) 31/12/96
• Project of the Medits 96 report (GC>SCM) 20/12/96
• Remarks and complements on the Medits 96 report (SCM>GC) 06/01/97
• Transmission Medits 96 > EC-DG XIV (GC) 15/01/97
• SC meeting, Crete (linked with Eastern Med. workshop) 05/02/97
• SC meeting, Bari (on one day, linked with SIBM congress) 27-29/05/97
• Medits 97 survey ~ May-July 97
• ‘97 Basic data (checked and validated) (SCM>GC) 30/09/97
• General meeting (few days in the period) 03-08/11/97
• Final report End of the year

SCM: Steering committee member, CCM: Co-ordination committee member, GC: General co-ordinator

The co-ordinator thanked the participants for their very useful contribution to the work done before and during the meeting. He particularly thanked A. Laurec for his acceptance to present the views of the Commission in the meeting and to conduct a very enriching discussion, in spite of a very full agenda. By his attendance at the meeting, A. Forest showed the interest of the Ifremer for the scientific works done in the Mediterranean, especially inside the Medits programme.

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Annexes

Medits 96 Survey: Biological analysis done in subgroups during the meeting in Paris (28/11/96) cf. Biological report

Groupe sur la sélectivité et l’efficacité du chalut

Annex III XI

New proposals for the analysis of the Medits data

Annex IV XXXV

Symposium: themes proposal

Annex V XXXVII

Summary of the A. Laurec’speech to the STECF

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