Bahamas IUU Risk Assessment

WWF is working with fishery stakeholders on a fishery improvement project (FIP) for the Bahamas spiny lobster fishery. In 2008, the Bahamas lobster fishery completed an MSC pre-assessment that compared the current status of the fishery against the MSC standard for sustainable fisheries. The pre-assessment provided an important benchmark to help monitor and evaluate future management strategies and identified important issues that need to be addressed before the Bahamian lobster fishery can meet the MSC standard.

The Department of Marine Resources (DMR) conducted a review of the current status of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in the spiny lobster fishery through a risk assessment exercise and what actions have been taken and needed to be taken by the Bahamas to address this issue. The aim of this assessment was to address potential weaknesses in P3 and ideally as part of a review of all MCS activities across all Bahmian fisheries. This risk assessment would identify those aspects of Bahamian fisheries most at risk from IUU.

MRAG were, as part of this ongoing process, were contracted to with DMR to conduct a risk assessment (likelihood-impact), quantify where possible IUU removals and provide advice on future data collection, planning of control and enforcement activities based on the results of the risk assessment.