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 ...
