Photo by Derek Keats/Flickr/CC

China Society of Fisheries, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) co-organized an international workshop on total allowable catch (TAC) systems for fishery management in Beijing last December. At the request of the Bureau of Fisheries under China's Ministry of Agriculture (MOA), NRDC leads the compilation of the workshop proceeding, which included TAC related policies and implementation experiences shared by 10 international experts from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, the United States, Canada, European Union, Japan, and China. The background, implementation plan, and progress of China's first TAC pilot with gazami crab management in Zhejiang province were shared as well, along with key insights derived from experts' discussions around specific issues. The proceeding further incorporated the speech of a Bureau of Fisheries official overseeing TAC, elaborating government's strategy for developing TAC in China. This January, MOA issued a document setting caps for the total domestic marine catch, highlighting TAC as a major reform approach to achieve China's sustainable fishery management goals. Since then, two TAC pilots in Zhejiang and Shandong Province have been launched this March. The workshop proceedings will be distributed to provincial and local fishery bureaus to serve as a reference to help develop their respective TAC pilot plans.