Issues like mercury contamination and overfishing have pushed tuna to the forefront of industry news in recent years, making the first-ever International Boston Seafood Show Tuna Forum, which took place Sunday, 14 March, extremely timely.
Forum panelists included International Seafood Sustainability Foundation President Susan Jackson, American Albacore Fishing Association board member Paul Hill, World Wildlife Fund VP of Fisheries Bill Fox and Bumble Bee Foods President and CEO Chris Lischewski.
The forum kicked off with the prevalent issue of depleted Atlantic bluefin tuna stocks and a proposed Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES) listing, which will be determined in the next two weeks during the organization’s convention in Doha, Qatar.
Fox said that while he thinks it will be tough to get all the countries to agree on the bluefin listing, which would ban international trade of the species, there is still a good chance that will be the end result. Next, the forum tackled the issue of how the seafood industry and regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) can support each other. Lischewski said the RFMOs do a great job developing tuna conservation programs, but that requiring all of the countries to agree on the measures dilutes their effectiveness.
“The dysfunctional aspect is that then they require all the countries to adopt the conservation measures and increasingly, over time, it becomes a negotiation and the conservation measure gets watered down to a point where it’s no longer meaningful,” Lischewski said. “The goal is to get enough of the companies that buy a lot of tuna to basically go back and tell the RFMOs, ‘If you don’t accept good science, we’re not going to buy from the fisheries,’ and it’s the only way we really thought of to put pressure on.”
However, it’s not all bad news for tuna, which the forum reminded attendees. Panelists pointed out that IUU fishing is not as big of a problem in tuna fisheries as it is with other fisheries, and certain species are still well managed.
For example, the North Atlantic albacore tuna fishery is not often in the news because stocks are well managed.
“North Atlantic albacore was assessed three or four years ago and overfishing was occurring so the quota was reduced and the recommendations of the science committee were accepted,” said Lischewski. “It is clearly a stock that needs to be addressed, but it is being addressed, unlike bluefin, which is not being addressed. North Atlantic albacore is a good example of an RFMO doing a good job.”
Bycatch in tuna fisheries has also been steadily improving. Jackson pointed out that ISSF launched a major bycatch initiative last July and is working on a two- to three-year research plan on a globally coordinated basis to minimize bycatch.
