Further refinements of the BR CMP

Imposition of a cap on the East area TAC and introduction of a downward adjustment of West area TACs if abundance indices show a downward trend leads to what are considered to be two trade-off improvements in the BR CMP performance. Respectively these are higher West area TACs (though at the expense of lower East area TACs), and improved final abundances for the Western stock for especially the most “difficult” R3 OMs. However, a concern that still needs to be addressed is cases for the R2 scenario where the TACs for the East area can drop to levels in the 10 kt vicinity; this is although the Eastern stock status has climbed to generally well above BMSY after 30 years, and hence catches would not seem to need to have been reduced so low.