The International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) is once again calling on the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) to enhance monitoring of its fisheries and engage in science-based conservation of the tuna fisheries it manages.
The IOTC is holding its 29th annual meeting from 13 to 17 April, bringing together member nations of the regional fishery management organization (RFMO) to work on management of a range of tuna stocks in the Indian Ocean. The ISSF is calling on the RFMO to tackle a number of new initiatives, including establishing observer coverage of the fisheries through electronic monitoring, better bycatch mitigation and shark protection, and science-based management of the tuna stock.
“Without the adoption of catch limits and other management measures to ensure stringent adherence to such limits – all of which also demand robust compliance monitoring systems – the health of tuna stocks and the broader marine ecosystem remain at risk,” the ISSF said.
The ISSF is calling on the IOTC to stick to scientific management of its tuna fisheries – especially the yellowfin tuna fishery. Yellowfin tuna had long been considered overfished, and at the IOTC’s 28th meeting in May 2024, it failed to adopt any improvements to curtail yellowfin tuna fishing – a stock that had been considered overfished since 2015 – despite multiple calls from NGOs to tackle the issue.
That issue will be less pressing at its 29th meeting in April, as the IOTC Scientific Committee’s latest assessment of the stock issued a “green” rating for yellowfin tuna. That rating used a series of revisions to a model developed in 2021 to calculate the stock’s biomass, which determined that at current fishing pressure the stock was not overfished and was not subject to overfishing.
ISSF said it is still vitally important to continue ...
