Fishermen in Europe are permitted to catch more bluefin tuna this year, but the EU will maintain high control levels, including the introduction of a new electronic traceability tool.
Running from 26 May to 24 June in the Mediterranean and the Eastern Atlantic, this short fishing season allows large purse seiner vessels to catch bluefin up to a pre-determined limit. This is part of a recovery plan agreed at international level to bring the stock back to sustainable levels.
The fishery is regulated by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), of which the EU and its member states are members. Following advice from its scientists in 2014, ICCAT agreed to an increase of 60 percent of the total allowable catch (TAC) over three years – 2015, 2016 and 2017. For 2016, this brings the European TAC to 11,203 metric tons (MT).
The quota is shared between the eight EU countries actively involved in the bluefin tuna fishery – Spain, France, Italy, Croatia, Greece, Portugal, Malta, and Cyprus. Of these, Spain and France have the largest shares.
To ensure that no overfishing takes place and similar to previous years, a strict control and inspection program is in place, which sets concrete control priorities and benchmarks and deploys a several inspectors, patrol vessels and aircrafts, all coordinated by the European Fisheries Control Agency (EFCA) and the member states concerned.
In a statement, the European Commission (EC) said it was pleased with the work and commitment of member states to ensure compliance with the rules in this fishery in the past few years, and is also appreciative of the significant role played by EFCA in ensuring the coordination of these controls.
It added that it would remain vigilant to ensure that all rules, and particularly the individual vessels' quotas, are fully respected. It would also continue to monitor catches and analyze vessel monitoring system data on a constant basis and continue to send out inspectors.
For the first time, the EU is also implementing the eBCD, a new electronic catch document system that greatly improves the traceability of all bluefin products.
According to the EC, the use of this program, combined with the rest of the measures of the recovery plan, makes this fishery one the most controlled in the world, and provides the best guarantees to consumers that the resource is being used sustainably.
“Bluefin tuna is indeed a primary example of sustainable management, having gone from heavy over-exploitation to full recovery in the space of a few years thanks to a massive international effort led by the EU. To this date it is the only stock in good state in the Mediterranean, while a great majority of stocks remain overfished,” said the statement.
Convinced that the same kind of collaborative effort should be extended to the other iconic species of the basin, at the recent Seafood Expo Global (SEG 16), EU Fisheries Commissioner Karmenu Vella launched MedFish4ever, a new international campaign for the recovery of all Mediterranean stocks.
The EC also said it was pleased with the recent political agreement found with the European Parliament and the Council of the EU to transpose the ICCAT bluefin tuna recovery plan into European law.
“By bringing about additional legal certainty and smoothing the implementation of the various measures of the recovery plan, this can only support the stock's recovery plan and its long-term sustainability.”
