The information contributed to FIRMS are advisory reports on stocks including description of exploitation, assessment results, scientific advice to management and status and trend statement.

ICES provides information on stock status and trends and advice on fishery management for Northeast Atlantic and Baltic Sea fisheries in accordance with agreements with its member countries and its Partner Fisheries Commissions. Advice on exploitation of Atlantic tunas and whales are the remit of ICCAT and IWC, respectively.

See the current collection coverage   

The information to be contributed conform to the policy guidelines for confidentiality and information release of the ICES and to the Information Management Policy established by the FIRMS Steering Committee.

Sources and Traceability
ICES detailed stock assessment and scientific reports which serve as background documentation for information published on FIRMS is published on the ICES web site. Links to relevant sections of these reports and relevant section of texts are added in various topics of the FIRMS fact sheets under ICES ownership.
Bibliographic sources for the ICES reports are contained in the individual stock assessment reports. They may also be directly located when visiting the ICES website.

Transparency and Peer-Review
Details of ICES data and compilation are provided in ICES reports in particular in the ICES Fish Stock Assessment Working Group Reports.

Transparency of the information and results on status and trends of stocks and resources presented by ICES are documented in the course of the scientific peer-review process followed to obtain the results, and the various public meetings of the ICES at which the results, and various options for management and resource conservation, are presented and discussed. Details on these meetings and processes are available at the ICES website.



Consistency and accuracy


Information Security
All contributions provided by ICES are on the public domain.
The information contributed to FIRMS resides under the full ownership (hence responsibility) of ICES. Methods used in authentication and verification of this information lie on the FIRMS security mechanisms, including a role for an ICES editor and an ICES approver.

Timeliness
Transmission schedule is planned to be within the few days following publication by ICES of its reports on the ICES website.

Inquiries can be addressed to the Database Manager of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES).

This is an extract of the ICES fisheries advice presenting the fish stock information. The full ICES advice is available on http://www.ices.dk and accounts for fisheries constraints in addition to the stock considerations.