Towards a scientific community consensus on designating Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems from imagery.

ABSTRACT: Management of deep-sea fisheries in areas beyond national jurisdiction by Regional Fisheries Management Organizations/Arrangements (RFMO/As) requires identification of areas with Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems (VMEs). Currently, fisheries data, including trawl and longline bycatch data, are used by many RFMO/As to inform the identification of VMEs. However, the collection of such data creates impacts and there is a need to collect non-invasive data for VME identification and monitoring purposes. Imagery data from scientific surveys satisfies this requirement, but there currently is no established framework for identifying VMEs from images. Thus, the goal of this study was to bring together a large international team to determine current VME assessment protocols and establish preliminary glob

SUBMITTER: Baco AR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10576969 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature