eCatch Technology for Collaborative Fisheries Management Matt Merrified – GIS Manager, The Nature Conservancy

A secure web based application that aggregates fisheries information for visualizing, reporting and mapping. Users can choose to share information with other members of cooperative arrangements.

Project requirements Digitize paper records kept by permit lease holders (fishermen) Monitor geographic constraints on permits Monitor the capture of depleted species Monitor progress towards catch limits for all permit holders Track costs & revenue for each permit Report to management agencies as needed

Data inputs – paper eCatch website Tickets - landings Logbooks expenses maps reports Outputs – electronic

The way it isWhat we want

In production since October trips with 756 sets / tows by 8 vessels

eCatch core functions

Vessel A Vessel B Vessel C Vessel D Vessel E Vessel F Vessel G

Vessel A Vessel B Vessel C Vessel D Vessel E Vessel F Vessel G Vessel B

What’s next

Ingest of electronic fish tickets from NMFS Capture logbooks using a mobile device Summer 2011 Short term: Data capture / integration

Spring Summer Fall Weak stock hot spots in time and space These are not real – proof of concept

Who owns the data and controls the systems – industry, government, or a third party? Fishermen / permit holders

How do we protect privacy? accessing data should be no different than accessing your bank account online

How do we ensure quality, transparency, and integrity of the information regardless of who collects and holds the data? How do we integrate disparate systems and maximize inter-operational capacity? What is the best approach to stage development to ensure success? How do we ensure that today’s systems will be consistent with tomorrow’s emerging technologies? Establish a set of data standards

Can we (or should we) develop a single integrated “fishery information system”? Absolutely not – spend effort developing a set of data standards

In conclusion Information sharing is critical for collective fishing arrangements, particularly weak stock species Ideally we would not expend so many resources on data capture and entry Data standards are crucial for advancing development