As a first stage, this page intends to provide as complete as possible information on fishing licences by country and by year, issued to industrial fishing vessels operating in the sub-region. The lion's share of these vessels is of foreign origin, and operates either under a bilateral fisheries agreements or joint venture arrangements. Since most of the commercial stocks of the sub-region are shared, there are very important reasons for States to share information on issued industrial fishing licenses, and to create a maximum of transparency and collaborative linkages between member States of the SRFC. This will enable governments and scientists to monitor the evolution of actual fishing pressure in given fisheries across SRFC member States. Also, this register will enable for the first time the analysis of actual distribution and real numbers of licensed industrial vessels operating in the sub-region. The fact that numerous operators buy licences in more than one country in the sub-region invariably leads to double counting, and poor estimates of fishing pressure – due to the lack of a common licence register. In a second step, and as a function of the quality of the data received from fisheries administrations of the sub-region, it is foreseen to build a consolidated data base, which will enable direct analysis of distribution and importance of vessels by type, country and year, through a simple user interface hosted on this page. In conjunction with stock health data, this type of information is key in setting levels of fishing concessions to foreign entrants, and one of the basic working tools that will enable the informed and sustainable management of the fisheries resources of the sub-region.

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