The new West Coast rock lobster OMP based on an area-disaggregated approach

The OMP currently being developed for the West Coast Rock Lobster is different from the three previous OMPs applied to manage the resource (see Johnston and Butterworth 2005), in that this new OMP will provide TACs for each of the five super-areas on an annual basis. During 2006, considerable work was focussed on the development of assessment models for each super-area. These assessment models now form the “operating models” which are used for testing alternate OMP candidates and are described in ANSW/JUL07/WCRL/ASS/1 and 2. The new OMP uses data (trap and hoop CPUE, FIMS, somatic growth rate) from each area (where available), combines these data into a single index (for each data type), produces a global TAC, and then uses a series of rules to split this global TAC into TACs at the super-area level. At the same time, estimates of recreational catch for each super-area are taken into account, as well as ensuring that super-area TACs will allow the allocations to the limited rights holders (smaller scale operators restricted to a particular super-area) to be taken each year