November 6, 2018 — The following was released by the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation:
The International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) has released its position statement in advance of the 21st Meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) in Dubrovnik, Croatia, on 12-19 November 2018.
“The 2018 assessment of bigeye tuna shows that the stock is overfished and subject to overfishing, and yellowfin may also be subject to overfishing. ICCAT must take urgent action,” said ISSF President Susan Jackson.
“This time last year, ICCAT scientists were reporting that the established catch limits for bigeye and yellowfin had been exceeded in 2016 by 11% and 16%, respectively. Fast-forward to today and the bigeye catch limit has been exceeded by 20 percent, and yellowfin catch limit by 17 to 37 percent. The management of these valuable tuna stocks is getting worse, not better. More should have been done last year, and the upcoming meeting in Dubrovnik offers another chance to get it right.”
ISSF is asking ICCAT to adopt stock-specific management measures in line with the advice of the ICCAT scientific committee, which includes: appropriate and fully-allocated catch levels so that ICCAT member countries can know their individual limits; capacity limits that are commensurate with these allocations; and provisions to ensure catches are in compliance with the limits. ICCAT must also consider alternative means to reduce the mortality of bigeye and yellowfin tuna in the purse seine fishery—measures like strengthened FAD management, limitations on the use of supply and support vessels, and expanded time/area closures and effort controls.