A global record of stocks and fisheries is essential in almost every scenario dealing with fisheries and stock assessment, including reporting, aggregated status summaries, and authoritative references for general public including responsible seafood consumers. It is not currently possible to integrate the fragmented data into a global dynamic register of spatio-temporal explicit knowledge base on fisheries stocks. Currently, the approximately 2,000 described stocks cannot be viewed, queried, or assessed from a single entry point. The assessment work on stocks and fisheries requires expertise from many domains. It is currently supported by international initiatives with distinct goals, remit, and coverage, such as the FAO-led FIRMS information sharing partnership among RFBs, University of Washington’s Ramm Legacy Stock Assessment database, FIN’s FishBase, and the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership’s FishSource. The dynamic integration of these sources as part of a Global Record of Stock and Fisheries is seen as a critical step towards achieving a comprehensive coverage of status reports. There is a huge societal need to understand the provenance of aquatic products to understand the impact the extraction has on the environment. Such a global system would provide a clear incentive to the fisheries sector to inform society of the provenance of aquatic products in the market chain, and this can only be managed with engagement from both producers and the trading sector, which will contribute to the activity through the self-funded activity of SFP.

Today, a comprehensive mechanism to support the before mentioned processes does not exist. However, the community data flows are typically accompanied by best practices related to their management and dissemination. 

BlueBRIDGE is working to implement the GRSF VRE. The VRE will be released in early 2018.