December 7, 2015 — The following is a commentary submitted to Saving Seafood by David Schalit, the Vice President of the American Bluefin Tuna Association:

The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) used to be the regional fishery management organization everybody loved to hate.  Its dysfunctionality was legendary.  ICCAT became famous because it is the regional fishery management organization responsible for Atlantic bluefin tuna, the famously “iconic” and “charismatic” tuna stock that has been the subject of intense media interest for a very long time and the only tuna species to star in its own cable television series. 

ICCAT’s Problem

In the mid-late 1990’s, due to concerns expressed by ICCAT scientists about the status of Atlantic bluefin, ICCAT began adopting measures to limit harvest of both east and west stocks.  Only the west Atlantic harvesters heeded the advices of ICCAT scientists.  European Union fishing countries and other eastern harvesters who target east Atlantic bluefin weren’t listening.  During the next several years the east Atlantic stock was subject to consistent and increasing overfishing, illegal fishing and unreported fishing.  In 2007 – the worst year on record for east Atlantic bluefin – ICCAT scientists estimated that catch in the east Atlantic could be as high as 60,000 MT, almost twice the allowed quota.  

As a consequence, “the plight of the Atlantic bluefin” became the subject of ongoing public relations campaigns by numerous environmental organizations.  Annual meetings of ICCAT in the years leading up to 2008 developed a circus atmosphere, consisting of a full complement of delegates, a large number of industry representatives, media and environmental observers as well as environmental activists who regularly demonstrated outside of the meeting venue.  As a result, ICCAT meetings were regularly covered by media worldwide.  

ICCAT’s Redemption

ICCAT finally began to redeem itself during its 2008 meeting when it mustered the political will to cease overfishing and begin the process of rebuilding east Atlantic bluefin stock.  Today, both east and west Atlantic bluefin stocks have become a fishery management success story. 

The New Problem

However, ICCAT may be returning to its old ways.  This time, the problem is with Atlantic bigeye tuna.  ICCAT scientists turned in a stock assessment on Atlantic bigeye this October indicating that the stock is presently overfished and with overfishing presently taking place.  ICCAT scientists urged the adoption of conservation measures to immediately address this problem.  Last week, the 24^th annual meeting of ICCAT was held in Malta.  Unfortunately, when the meeting came to a close on November 17, ICCAT had failed to achieve meaningful conservation measures for Atlantic bigeye tuna.  Sound familiar?

What Were the Objectives?

The scientists recommended steps that would lead to increasing “future chances that the stock will be at a level that is consistent with the convention objectives.” The primary means available to ICCAT for achieving this were a reduction in harvesting of mature bigeye in the central/south Atlantic and a reduction in bycatch of juvenile bigeye in the Gulf of Guinea skipjack fishery.  Neither of these goals was met.

Major Harvesting Forces

The Atlantic bigeye tuna fishery consists of 8 major harvesters and 11 minor harvesters.  The eight major harvesters (China, EU, Ghana, Japan, Panama, Philippines, Korea and Chinese Taipei) are, in total, a fleet of 659 longline vessels plus assorted “support vessels”, mostly fishing in the equatorial Atlantic, in deep water, for mature bigeye.  The EU alone has 269 vessels in this fleet, and Japan has 245.  

In addition, there are 51 purse seine vessels permitted by ICCAT to operate in the Gulf of Guinea skipjack fishery that are responsible for significant bycatch of juvenile bigeye and yellowfin.  Of those 51 vessels, the EU (France and Spain) is the largest fleet, with 34 vessels.

To put this in perspective, in 2014, the 8 major harvesters were responsible for over 53,000 MT of bigeye catch, whereas the 11 minor harvesters, including the U.S. and Brazil, were responsible for just under 14,000 MT.  (The U.S. reported 800 MT of catch in 2014.)  And there is a great deal of uncertainty regarding the level of mortality on juvenile bigeye in the purse seine fishery. 

The Negotiations

During the negotiations at last week’s meeting, the U.S., Brazil and a few other minor harvesters squared off against the very well prepared forces of the EU and Japan who had the backing of their formidable fishing industries.  It is said that those who have “the most skin in the game” tend to prevail and so, notwithstanding the efforts of the U.S., Brazil and others to reduce fishing effort by these major harvesters, the EU, Japan and the 6 other major harvesters were the winners and Atlantic bigeye tuna was the loser.

Curiously, the major harvesters can make the claim to have reduced the overall TAC.  Atlantic bigeye harvesting is presently governed by an Atlantic-wide TAC from which each of the 8 major harvesters are given a fixed, “not to exceed” individual TAC. Last week, the major harvesters agreed to reduce their combined allowed TAC from its present level of 79,000 MT to to 58,000 MT.  This gives the distinct impression that significant conservation measures were taken.  However, landings averaged over the last 5 years are below 58,000 MT.  In actual fact, this agreement allows these harvesters another 9,000 MT above their reported landings of 2014.  Consequently, no actual cuts in catch were made. 

The Fiasco in the Gulf of Guinea

The problem in the Gulf of Guinea is an issue that has plagued ICCAT since the 1990s. ICCAT has made various attempts, beginning in the late 90’s, to reduce bycatch of juvenile bigeye and yellowfin typically weighing no more than 3-6 lbs, in the Gulf of Guinea purse seine skipjack fishery.  According to the scientists, none of these attempts yielded any reduction in bigeye bycatch.  Why?

At each ICCAT meeting in which this bycatch problem was addressed, the EU has tendered its own fully detailed proposal to address the problem.  In each instance, their proposal involved a variation on the concept of a time/area closure in the Gulf of Guinea for a fixed period during each fishing season.  Since the EU purse seine fleet is the dominant force in the Gulf of Guinea skipjack fishery, it is difficult to imagine why ICCAT would have ever seriously considered an EU proposal.  Clearly, the EU’s interests are best served by thwarting any conservation action that would have a negative effect on its seining activities in the Gulf.  However, in each instance, ICCAT has adopted the EU’s proposal.  And in every instance, ICCAT scientists subsequently found that these closures did not result in the reduction of bycatch.  Today, these facts are well known to ICCAT member countries.  So, why did ICCAT, in last week’s meeting, adopt a new EU-authored solution to the problem of bigeye bycatch that is likely to achieve nothing?  This, too, is reminiscent of the “old” ICCAT.

Final Outcome

We can point to other successes that came out of the ICCAT meeting such as significant progress on Convention amendments, eBCD and the development of harvest control rules; all important issues.  But if ICCAT fails in its primary task – the “conservation of Atlantic tunas” – all other successful initiatives are diminished in importance because of that failure. 

Fortunately for ICCAT, it has a chance to partially redeem itself at next years’ meeting, when it will address Atlantic yellowfin tuna, a stock that has some of the same problems as Atlantic bigeye.  Unfortunately, ICCAT will have to wait until 2018 to have a chance to again address the issue of conservation of bigeye tuna.