The Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission has established new minimum standards for electronic monitoring on fishing vessels in a move that sustainability-focused NGOs are celebrating as a win.
The commission met for its annual meeting from 2 to 6 September amid calls for increased vessel monitoring from NGOs including Pew and the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation. Those calls were in part heeded, as the commission adopted new minimum standards for electronic vessel monitoring for the Eastern Pacific high seas fishing fleet.
“[It's] a significant milestone that could help provide much-needed oversight and data collection on vessels,” The Pew Charitable Trusts International Fisheries Manager Esther Wozniak said.
Pew had advocated for electronic monitoring standards to help expand oversight of its fisheries. It said ahead of the meeting that the increased coverage could help fisheries managers address climate change by having more up-to-date information.
Pew said in a release following the meeting the IATTC now needs to put its updated standards into practice.
“Now, IATTC should put EM to use and require fleets without human observers to equip all of their vessels with cameras and sensors that meet the minimum standards to track fishing activities, identify bycatch of non-target species like sharks and help prevent illegal activities on the water,” Wozniak said. “Full oversight of fishing activity in the region should be an IATTC priority.”
ISSF said that the IATTC’s willingness to adopt the standards represent progress in efforts to encourage regional fishery management organizations to take more responsibility for regulating high seas fishing in their jurisdictions.
“By adopting these interim electronic monitoring minimum standards, IATTC is poised to improve monitoring levels – making more data available for scientific work and for assessing the implementation of management measures,” ISSF said. “More importantly, in swiftly and successfully tackling a complex problem, IATTC has demonstrated that the RFMO decision-making process can be both efficient and constructive.”
At its meeting, the commission also took action on updating its compliance process, which ISSF had pushed it to address. Specifically, the commission adopted a timebound work plan to strengthen its compliance committee’s procedures and outcomes, which includes developing a hierarchy of infractions to direct limited resources to the most pressing issues, as well as identifying responses to specific infractions for compliance improvements, ISSF said.
“Compliance really is one of the most fundamental aspects of an RFMO because they spend a lot of time adopting these measures, but the other side of that coin is ensuring those measures are being implemented effectively and fairly across all the membership,” ISSF Vice President, Policy and Outreach Holly Koehler told SeafoodSource ahead of the meeting.
The Pew Charitable Trusts said the updated measures demonstrate the commission is trying to make sure the rules it establishes are followed.
IATTC also approved a two-year extension of its tropical tuna management measures, extended its enhanced monitoring program for bigeye tuna catches, approved enhanced shark conservation regulations, and made headway on new fish-aggregating device (FAD) management, ISSF said.
Wozniak said that while the progress was welcome, the commission still has more work to do on major issues.
“More urgent action is needed to incorporate climate change into management, and science-based processes for setting catch limits should be strengthened,” Wozniak said. “This is particularly clear after members agreed to increase the catch of Pacific bluefin by 50 percent but struggled to advance work on other tuna fisheries that require action. Still, advances on electronic monitoring and compliance mean this meeting could be a catalyst for more positive change over the next three years.”
