The SIOFA Scientific Committee (SC) is tasked to provide management advice for three important species (orange roughy, splendid alfonsino and Patagonian toothfish) to the Meeting of parties of SIOFA. CMM 2020/15 (paragraph 5) requires out that the orange roughy (Hoplostethus atlanticus) stocks shall be assessed every three to five years. The first stock assessments of orange roughy were conducted in 2018 (Cordue 2018a, 2018b) and the second assessments were conducted in 2022 (Roa-Ureta 2022). The next stock assessment is scheduled for completion for SC10 in 2025.

The SIOFA Scientific Committee (SC) is tasked to provide management advice for three important species (orange roughy, splendid alfonsino and Patagonian toothfish) to the Meeting of parties of SIOFA. CMM-15 (2020) paragraph 5 requires that the orange roughy (Hoplostethus atlanticus) stocks shall be assessed every three to five years. The first stock assessments of orange roughy were conducted in 2018 (Cordue 2018a, 2018b) and the second assessments were conducted in 2022 (Roa-Ureta 2022). The next stock assessment is scheduled for completion for SC10 in 2025.

SIOFA Conservation and Management Measures (CMM) 2019/01 directs the Scientific Committee (SC) to provide maps of where vulnerable marine ecosystems (VMEs) are known to occur, or likely to occur, in the Agreement Area. The Meeting of the Parties shall act on the advice of the SC in regards with the VME habitat mapping and update its interim bottom fisheries measures.

This is a pilot study to validate ageing of alfonsino using bomb radiocarbon analyses of alfonsino otoliths.

Its main objective is to provide advice to the SIOFA Scientific Committee on the validity of ageing of alfonsino (Beryx splendens) in the SIOFA Area.

This project will provide options for consideration by the SIOFA Scientific Committee for evaluating and monitoring protected areas in the SIOFA Area.

Overall objectives:

Objective 1: Provide advice to the SIOFA Scientific Committee on the options for evaluating and monitoring current protected areas (CMM2020/01 Annex C) in the SIOFA Area.
Objective 2: Provide advice to the SIOFA Scientific Committee on approaches to developing protocols for designating new protected areas (as per CMM2020/01 paragraph 5d) in the SIOFA Area.

This project (SEC2022-01) focuses on “Reinforcing the data collection, SIOFA data/base systems, and coding and data processes” as per General Objective 4 of the funding arrangement.
Time series of fishing effort, catch, biological samplings are already part of the SIOFA databases. However, the adequacy of these data can be evaluated only in the context of the purposes for which they are used and currently there are strong limitations both for the Secretariat and the final users.

SIOFA CMM2020/01 (paragraph 6a) requires the SIOFA Scientific Committee to provide advice to the Meeting of the Parties on the status of stocks of deep-sea fishery resources, including alfonsino (Beryx splendens). In 2020, the SIOFA Scientific Committee (SC3) conducted the first alfonsino stock assessments in the SIOFA region and provided to the Meeting of Parties on the stock status and sustainable yields. In 2023, the assessment for alfonsino will be updated.

This project has three main objectives: