INS302-01 Review of the monitoring and regulatory landscape for bycatch in UK marine waters

The overarching objective of this project is to provide a critical appraisal of the current regulatory and policy frameworks for both monitoring and managing bycatch in UK marine waters. This is a crucial project required to inform the OEP's wider work on holding government to account for the achievement of Good Environmental Status (GES) under the UK Marine Strategy.

For the purposes of this project, 'bycatch' will be taken to mean the "unintentional capture or entanglement of non-target species in fishing gear often resulting in serious injury or mortality"1. It should also encompass the unintentional capture of fish that are below minimum conservation reference size, so as to fully align with the 'bycatch objective' set out in the Joint Fisheries Statement.

The overarching objective will be achieved through delivering the following elements:

•Building on existing OEP analysis to clarify the degree to which bycatch affects the achievement of GES - specifically, to determine the contribution that delivering Government's bycatch commitments could make to relevant GES indicators, and the scale of action that may be required to realise those commitments.

•Reviewing current regulatory and policy measures implemented in UK marine waters that impact on the management of bycatch - to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the regulatory system by examining the design and implementation of existing laws, policies and regulations, including compliance mechanisms and enforcement practices.

•Reviewing the effectiveness of current approaches to monitoring bycatch - to evaluate the accuracy, reliability and coverage of existing monitoring programmes and potential knock-on effects for impactful regulation across different species and regions.

•Identifying barriers and enablers for improved bycatch monitoring and regulation, with a particular focus on known mitigation options and best practice solutions where available - to inform recommendations which would ensure that actions taken to address bycatch the contribute to achieve GES, based on the analysis conducted under 'A'.

The scope of this work will cover measures to monitor and address bycatch in England and Northern Ireland only, unless specifically designed to be UK-wide (e.g. UK Bycatch Mitigation Initiative).

In addition, we reserve the right to make direct awards of further contracts to the successful supplier for additional services (including consultancy and acting as an expert witness).

THIS PROCUREMENT HAS CONCLUDED AND THE CONTRACT AWARDED