EU - International Manual of Procedures (IMP) to be used in the NAFO Regulatory Area to guide the c

Request DGMARE Special Request to ICES: Notwithstanding the already long process for the conclusion of the IMP, DGMARE, in the purview of further strengthen the quality of the IMP and in particular with the objective of further enlarge the peer reviewing process of the document, seeks for ICES review and for scientific advice about the IMP in specific on: 1. [...] Elaboration on the advice Adequacy of the proposed IMP approach for collection of genetic material from sampling of fish for species identification ICES notes that the proposed sampling design is based on previous knowledge of the probability of detecting mislabelled specimens in the target geographical area. [...] ICES endorses the pilot period to test protocols and overall implementation of the manual in order to both verify the technical suitability of the approach and to estimate the probability values required for the statistical approach underpinning the sampling method. [...] Thus, the advice is based on the topics and approaches covered in the IMP, with the aim of securing representative sampling of the fishery. [...] In addition to the Portuguese manual of procedures (DGRM, 2015), which was the basis for the elaboration of the IMP, another relevant example is the test project carried out by the Danish AgriFish Agency, which explored the feasibility of fishery inspectors undertaking in situ tissue sampling for DNA analysis (Martinsohn et al., 2019).