The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) made progress on harvest strategies and its management of fish aggregating devices (FADs) in the Atlantic Ocean, while NGOs are pushing for it to continue that progress going forward.
At its recent meeting from 11 to 18 November, ICCAT adopted a new management procedure for Atlantic swordfish and Atlantic skipjack, adding to the commission’s existing strategy for Atlantic bluefin, drawing praise from organizations like The Pew Charitable Trusts and the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF).
It also adopted new measures and relaxed others on FADs. A reduction in a moratorium on the use of FADs was welcomed by fisheries trade body Europêche, which advocated for relaxing the measure to avert economic impacts. ISSF also welcomed some of ICCAT's actions on FADs, particularly a new timeline on deploying biodegradable FADs by 2028.
ICCAT also changed its transshipment policies, which ISSF Vice President of Policy and Research Holly Koehler told SeafoodSource will strengthen measures to reduce illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
“The commission strengthened its regulation of at-sea transshipment in line with best practices, including the FAO Voluntary Guidelines on Transshipment, by adopting changes to limit the use of carriers that are flagged to non-contracting parties to the ICCAT Convention,” Koehler said. “This amendment ensures that new carriers that want to engage in transshipment activities in the Atlantic Ocean must be flagged to a contracting party and included on the ICCAT Record of Carrier Vessels.”
Contracting parties are legally bound to the convention, and Koehler said ICCAT’s amendment was something for which ISSF has been advocating for a long time.
“Transshipment at sea can be a conduit for IUU fish to enter the supply chain,” Koehler said. “ICCAT’s improvements in this area will help better regulate at-sea activity and that all required data are reported, thereby enabling science-based management of Atlantic Ocean tuna fisheries.”
As the regional fishery management organization (RFMO) continues to make progress in some areas, NGOs are pushing the organization to make more in others.
NGOs have called on the RFMO to improve its management of yellowfin tuna stocks for years, calling for the commission to adopt a total allowable catch (TAC) within scientific advice. According to the ISSF, the yellowfin TAC has been exceeded every year but one since it first came into effect in 2012.
ISSF said the catch level set by the ICCAT at its latest meeting is still putting the stock on track for future issues.
“A 2024 assessment estimated the stock to be close to the biomass and fishing mortality levels that support maximum sustainable yield (MSY), and projections at the current catch level indicate that the stock will become overfished,” ISSF said in a release. “Stronger management measures are urgently needed to reduce the yellowfin catch in order to avoid this result.”
ISSF Vice President for Science Victor Restrepo told SeafoodSource there are a few obstacles in the way of the RFMO setting a TAC that falls within scientific guidelines.
“The main obstacle is that the TAC is not allocated by country, so non-compliance with the overall TAC cannot be assigned to any individual country,” Restrepo said.
ICCAT is not the only RFMO struggling with yellowfin quotas. The Indian Ocean Tuna Commission has also struggled to set TACs for the species that are within scientific advice, but Restrepo said it has nothing to do with the species itself.
“There is nothing unique to yellowfin that results in overfishing. For example, the yellowfin stocks in the Pacific Ocean are doing fine,” Restrepo said.
The two fisheries are also very different in terms of gear types and monitoring, Restrepo said, who added that the main obstacle is management, which is part of why ISSF is pushing for more management procedures in addition to those ICCAT has already established for swordfish and bluefin.
“Well-designed management procedures provide managers with greater control over fisheries by creating more predictable and stable outcomes,” ISSF Vice President of Policy and Research Holly Koehler told SeafoodSource. “That’s why ISSF and our advocacy partners have consistently urged the accelerated adoption of management procedures for all tunas across all RFMOs.”
