Fisheries

For the selection of commercial fish and shellfish stocks in the relevant marine (sub)region, assign each stock to one of the six ICES stock categories and collate either the MSY reference points or the MSY proxies for undertaking the Descriptor 3 assessment. For stocks in Category 6, i.e. negligible landings stocks and stocks caught in minor amounts as bycatch, evaluate whether each stock should be assessed under Descriptor 3 or more appropriately, under the biodiversity Descriptor D1, when the level of catch has historically been low. If low catches are likely to be due to low stock abundance, the stock should be considered under Descriptor 3

Regarding Mediterranean and Black sea Regions, the "[embed link 2 to the report] Technical guidance on monitoring for the Marine Stategy Framework Directive" has recommended the same approach to be taken for the Mediterranean and Black Sea Regions, by using either the same stocks categorization or a different one but by defining the analytical approach to be applied with increasing range of uncertainty according to decreasing data availability.