Commission praises new ICCAT tuna measures

The European Commission spoke in praise of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) developing harvest control rules at its recent annual meeting.

“Although not all ambitions were met, the EU is very satisfied with the results and the progress of this organization,” the commission said in a statement.

The commission applauded ICCAT’s work on harvest controls for Northern Albacore tuna, along with management strategy evaluation.

The commission also praised new measures to manage bigeye tuna, including a reduction in total allowable catch, along with ICCAT’s adoption of a proposal for electronic catch documentation systems for bluefin tuna, which the commission said “will undoubtedly become a key tool for the conservation of the species.”

The commission did criticize ICCAT for what it perceived as a lack of movement on shark conservation.

“On a less positive side the EU very much regrets that ICCAT was not ready to move towards other meaningful measures proposed by the EU for the conservation of sharks, notably blue sharks, which risk remaining unmanaged until the next stock assessment takes place in 2018,” the commission wrote in its statement.

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