Member nations of the Northern Committee of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) this week agreed to halve the catch of juvenile bluefin in the western and central Pacific by 50 percent from the average level seen between 2002 and 2004.
The decision comes after a week-long meeting in Fukuoka, Japan. However, the member nations did not agree on the measures for long term recovery for what environmental groups say is a severely depleted bluefin population in the Pacific.
“The short-term measures the Northern Committee has recommended are encouraging, however this is just the first step in solving a decades long overfishing problem that has resulted in the literal decimation of this population,” said Amanda Nickson, director of global tuna conservation for Pew Environment Group. “There must be a strong recovery and rebuilding plan put in place for Pacific bluefin across its full range. In the eastern Pacific, the United States, Mexico and Japan must get to work and build on the measures taken this week. The bottom line here is that countries have the responsibility to agree on a strong recovery plan that does more than simply move the population from severely depleted to slightly less seriously depleted.”
The latest assessment by the International Scientific Committee for Tuna and Tuna-like Species in the North Pacific Ocean (ISC), an independent group of scientists who focus on species in the Northern Pacific, found that the Pacific bluefin population has dropped 96 percent from its historic size, with steady declines over the past 15 years.
Bluefin tuna catches are a global concern, as is the bycatch from the fisheries. Just last week, the United States’ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Service issued a final amendment to protect the fish from surface longline fishing gear. The amendment restricts the use of the gear in certain areas of the Gulf of Mexico and Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, while promoting highly selective gear such as greensticks for yellowfin tuna and buoy gear for swordfish.
“For more than 10 years, scientists, fishermen, and other stakeholders have urged the agency to protect western Atlantic bluefin in their only known spawning area,” said Lee Crockett, director of U.S. ocean conservation for Pew. “NOAA Fisheries clearly demonstrated its dedication and commitment to restoring bluefin tuna.”
