ITM announcement for website
Our commitment continues with respect to both the intent and investment in the large scale research program undertaken as improvements associated with our original MSC certificate. The ITM will allow the fulfillment of two vessel-based studies on dolphins that were meaningfully affected by both the COVID pandemic and the reality of work on fast moving mammals on open seas (please see final paragraph).
The ITM program in its current version (V1.1 )does not specifically provide for the participation of fisheries that have already been certified; so, the Alliance, at the request of the MSC, will wait for the publication of version 2.0 of the ITM, which will include requirements designed to operationalize ITM for these types of fisheries.
V2.0 of the ITM requirements are expected by MSC to be published by the end of May, whereupon the Alliance will submit its Improvement Action Plan to its CAB for verification. Pending CAB-verification of eligibility for ITM V2.0, the fishery will formally enter the ITM program. MSC anticipates that E-Cert will have updated functionality that will provide ITM fisheries a dedicated site for assessments, analogous to documents currently available by fishery, on Track a Fishery.
Meanwhile, we will continue working on the Action Plan and on everything necessary to continue advancing towards fulfilling our public sustainability commitments.
In the interests of transparency and updating stakeholders curious about the status of the science, we will expand here on previous surveillance reports to provide further information about the successes and challenges encountered in this IATTC-led research. Our goal is to be responsive and to ensure that website information provides useful communications to stakeholders.