A group of fishery managers and scientists met to consider this. The Scientific Council was requested to provide information on the location of vulnerable marine ecosystems in the regulatory area, including specific information on corals and sponges. I chaired this meeting. We reviewed the information from the Scientific Council and decided to put forward some recommendations to offer protection, according to international convention, to some of these areas of high concentrations of corals and sponges. These measures were agreed to by consensus and then adopted by the NAFO Fisheries Commission. That was the process as I understand it.
On October 20th, 2009. See this statement in context.