The Terms of Reference for this project are  a) to prepare and read orange roughy otoliths collected from the Walters Shoal region to determine their ages and fulfill, if possible, the minimum sample numbers for each sex and 5 cm length bin as shown in Table 1 (high priority); and  b) to prepare and read orange roughy otoliths collected from other regions in the SIOFA Area (as determined by the Chair of the SERAWG and the data owners in collaboration with the consultant) (medium priority).  A maximum of 300 otoliths will be required to be read for (a) and (b) combined. 

The fifth session of the SIOFA Meeting of the Parties (MoP5) in 2018 requested the SIOFA Scientific Committee (SC) to develop a framework and work plan for the establishment of harvest strategies for key SIOFA stocks (para. 53, MoP5 report). Following this, the SIOFA SC proposed six key elements (requirements) for consideration as part of SIOFA harvest strategies and/or a SIOFA harvest strategy framework, including:
(i) Definition of management/operational objectives;
(ii) Limit and target reference points;

SIOFA CMM2019/01 paragraph 5(a) directed the Scientific Committee (SC) to provide advice and recommendations to the Meeting of the Parties (MoP) on a SIOFA Bottom Fishing Impact Assessment (SIOFA BFIA). BFIA in SIOFA are to be undertaken in accordance with the SIOFA Bottom Fishing Impact Assessment Standard (BFIAS).
The SC called for a consultant to undertake BFIA for trawl and demersal longline fishing gears used in SIOFA. Both BFIA shall be cumulative assessments using fishing data from all relevant Contracting Parties, where possible.

The first stock assessments of orange roughy were conducted in 2018 and the second full assessments are scheduled to be presented to the fourth SERAWG in March 2022 using the latest available data. In the first assessment, acoustic data were used as the abundance indices and the additional acoustic data needs to be incorporated into the second assessments. This short-term consultancy aim to collate and analyse the acoustic data and provide abundance estimates for use in the second assessments.

Note that the final reports are not in public access yet.