A fishery improvement project covering the tuna fleet of the Organización de Productores Asociados de Grandes Atuneros Congeladores (OPAGAC) has made progress bringing the fisheries closer toward Marine Stewardship Council certification.
OPAGAC said five of the dozen stocks of tropic tuna it fishes currently meet the standards necessary to qualify for MSC certification – which is the organization’s goal for all of its fisheries.
Stocks of yellowfin, skipjack and bigeye in the Central-Western Pacific and the yellowfin and skipjack in the Eastern Pacific obtained scores above the minimum set by the MSC, an independent auditor found. Those five fisheries represent 30 percent of the 380,000 metric tons of tuna caught annually by the 47 vessels in OPAGAC’s fleet.
“Our Global Tuna FIP is leading the path for the purse seine fisheries in transition to MSC certification, this being the most complete initiative of this type in the world, since it includes the three species fished in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans, comprising all fishing modes used by purse seiners,” OPAGAC Managing Director Julio Morón said. “Sustainability must be a priority in the agenda of any fleet and alliances with other organizations with a FIP underway are an excellent means to achieve a more constructive dialogue in the RFMOs and to involve governments, the commercial chain and the consumers.”
Morón has previously stated his objective is see all 12 tropical tuna stocks his organization fishes enter the MSC certification process by 2021. The FIP was created in 2016.
Last year, OPAGAC aligned itself with FIPs developed by other fleets, including the Ecuadorian organization TUNACONS (Tuna Conservation Group) in the Eastern Pacific and the Sustainable Indian Ocean Tuna Initiative (SIOTI), which includes purse-seining fleets in Spain, France, the Seychelles, and Mauritius. It has also pledged to continue providing data from the satellite buoys attached to its fish aggregating devices (FADs) to AZTI, a technology institute that studies the fishing industry and provides estimates on stock numbers and mortality rates.
OPAGAC is also involved in a study of the impact of purse seines, longline, and drift nets on the mortality of bycatch species. And it will continue its implementation of its BIOFAD program, which is assessing the use and effectiveness of biodegradable FADs. Morón said OPAGAC will also continue to advocate for the expansion of the use of electronic monitoring systems and work towards improving the information on endangered, threatened, and protected species.
“Despite the good progress of this FIP, we are still facing important problems of international governance that hinder the long-term sustainable development of the tropical tuna fishing populations and, especially, the recovery of overfished stocks such as the Atlantic bigeye tuna,” Morón said. “The slow progress in setting harvest control rules and suitable monitoring, control and surveillance measures for all the fisheries aiming at these species compromises their long-term sustainability.”
WWF has been assisting OPAGAC with its FIP and José Luis García Varas, head of the WWF Spain’s Oceans Program WWF Spain, said more work needs to be done to ensure the world’s tuna fisheries become more sustainable.
“There are still numerous challenges to ensuring that tropical tuna fisheries are sustainable and have minimal impacts on the ecosystem,” he said. “The European Union must show greater leadership in the RFMOs to reach agreements that establish a framework of sustainability for these species in the 21st century. ICCAT’s complete failure in 2018 to adopt measures that allow the recovery of bigeye tuna without further delay illustrates the type of challenges we are facing.”
