December 17, 2025 — Much of the world’s albacore tuna catch, which usually ends up in a can, comes from the southwestern Pacific Ocean, where fishery managers just passed a new set of conservation rules.
The parties to the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC), a multilateral body that sets fishing rules for an area that covers nearly 20% of the planet, adopted a harvest strategy for South Pacific albacore at their annual meeting, held Dec. 1-5 in Manila, the Philippines. Harvest strategies set near-automatic scientifically advised catch limits or other control measures in response to fluctuating fish stock levels; they’re considered a best practice in fisheries management because they reduce commercial or political influence. South Pacific albacore is one of two albacore (Thunnus alalunga) stocks in the WCPFC; the other is North Pacific albacore, which isn’t fished as much.
“This is a great move for the WCPFC,” Dave Gershman, a senior officer for international fisheries at The Pew Charitable Trusts, a U.S.-based think tank, told Mongabay after attending the meeting. “This is a critical step to ensure the sustainability and stability of the top Pacific albacore fisheries.”
Gershman noted that the harvest strategy was a “long time in the making” and had been “discussed for many, many years.”
The parties discussed, but didn’t adopt, new rules on transshipment, or the ship-to-ship transfer of fish and other goods at sea, a practice that’s been linked to illegal and unsustainable fishing and other illicit activity.
Glen Joseph, director of the fishing ministry of the Marshall Islands, a WCPFC member state, said the meeting thus delivered both positives and negatives.
“We successfully pushed the Harvest Strategy,” Joseph told Mongabay in an email, noting the role of the Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA), a bloc of 17 island nations including the Marshall Islands that tends to act in unison at the WCPFC, in pushing reforms. “We were not so successful with the transshipment issue,” he added.
A deal finally done
South Pacific albacore isn’t considered overfished and its stock is at about 48% of its historical levels, which is higher than many commercially fished stocks. Yet experts have argued that a harvest strategy is essential to the stock’s long-term health and that current management is “outdated.” WCPFC parties were spurred to action in part because the Marine Stewardship Council, a London-based ecolabel certification NGO, had signaled that from 2026 it wouldn’t certify South Pacific albacore fisheries that weren’t under a harvest strategy.
China and Taiwan harvest the most South Pacific albacore, but a number of smaller Pacific nations and territories also fish enough that it’s important to their economies. Longline vessels, which drop huge numbers of baited hooks into the sea, do most of the fishing. The economic value of albacore in the WCPFC area is about $1 billion per year, mostly from South Pacific albacore, according to Pew.
The new harvest strategy sets 56,096 metric tons per year as a sort of baseline harvest rate — lower than the roughly 65,000 metric tons that were harvested in 2024 in the part of the WCPFC area where the rules will apply, from 10-50° south. However, in coming years, the total allowable catch will remain above 56,096, because the rules stipulate that it can only be decreased by 5% per three-year period.
The exact figures for the first management period, 2027-29, will be determined next year. So will rules about how much of the catch can come from the high seas versus countries’ exclusive economic zones (EEZs).
The parties couldn’t reach an agreement on the harvest strategy at the 2024 annual meeting and so they discussed it at two intersessional meetings in 2025 — and then it dominated the meeting time in Manila in early December, with a deal being reached only in the final hours.
“It’s been looked at up and down, back and forth, sideways,” Gershman said.