The five international organizations that manage the world’s tuna fisheries are failing to prevent tuna stocks from being depleted, according to a new assessment from the World Wildlife Fund.
According to the assessment, the organizations haven’t come up with ways to cap fishing capacity, aren’t following the advice of their own scientists, and are making only slow progress in reducing illegal fishing, overfishing and bycatch. Additionally, they are not addressing the size and capacity of the tuna fleets chasing fewer fish.
The assessment, released in conjunction with this week’s Second Joint Tuna Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMO) meeting in San Sebastian, Spain, rates the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna, the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission and the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission.
At the meeting, WWF will ask for more to be done to prevent bycatch of turtles, sharks, juvenile tuna and other animals. Key measures will involve more effective regulation of the bycatch problem associated with the use of fish aggregation devices.
“Our assessment shows a resource in trouble, fisheries in trouble and institutions in trouble. But we believe there is still time to protect key ocean ecosystems where tuna is a top predator and conserve the fisheries and the communities that depend on them, said Miguel Jorge, marine director of WWF International.
“We now have too much experience to ignore on how fast over-exploited fisheries collapse and how slowly, if at all, they recover,” he added. “With bluefin tuna none of the collapsed populations are recovering and the remaining populations are clearly heading toward collapse. So far, we haven’t seen much action.”
WWF’s assessment traced progress on key fisheries management measures since the First Joint Tuna RFMO in Kobe, Japan, in 2007.
The International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) also expressed its concerns about the future of the world’s tuna fisheries, emphasizing the need to reduce bycatch. During this week’s Second Joint Tuna RFMO meeting, ISSF is offering to host a workshop with scientists and fisheries managers to tackle the problem of bycatch.
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