Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission Archives - Page 6 of 8

Two conservation-focused organizations collaborate for outreach to the tuna industry in Bitung and Jakarta, Indonesia

October 19, 2017 — WASHINGTON — The following was released by the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation:

The International Seafood Sustainability Foundation will hold Tuna Processor Forums in Bitung, Indonesia (23 October) and Jakarta, Indonesia (24 October) with support from the Walton Family Foundation. The goals of the events are to build management support for Indonesia’s tuna fisheries and equip local companies with the knowledge and opportunities to engage in tuna sustainability efforts through market influence.

“With its location between the Pacific and Indian oceans, Indonesia plays an important role in the global seafood marketplace,” said Holly Koehler, Vice President of Policy and Outreach, ISSF. “Collaborating with the Government of Indonesia, local fleets and the processing industry, in partnership with other NGOs, is essential to addressing tuna sustainability challenges that will, in turn, directly impact the work of Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs) like the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) and the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC),”

“Indonesia’s tuna fishery is one of the country’s most economically important fisheries, and its fishers land more tuna than any other fishing nation in the world,” said Heather D’Agnes, Environment Program Officer, Walton Family Foundation. “Working with seafood companies is an important step in building a sustainable future for fishermen and fish alike.”

ISSF works with a variety of partners in the region, including the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries, to strengthen the management of fisheries by collecting and compiling vessel data, helping vessels meet RFMO rules and improving traceability through the supply chain. ISSF and the Walton Family Foundation hope the forums will build on thesignificant progress the Ministry is making.

The aims of the Indonesia forums are multi-pronged, and both days include the following agenda:

Overview and update on Indonesia’s tuna fishing program including the rollout of the national tuna management plan from the Indonesian Government;

Introduction to opportunities to engage with IOTC and WCPFC, as well as updates on regional tuna management activities;

Overview of ISSF’s activities in support of sustainable tuna fisheries;

Information on tuna sourcing commitments from markets in Europe, North America and Australia and how these commitments intersect with ISSF Conservation Measures, ISSF Participating Companies and the ISSF ProActive Vessel Register (PVR); and

Information on the options and benefits of tuna company participation in ISSF.

ISSF has been involved with ongoing projects in the region since 2015, including:

The implementation of pilots that trial the PVR for small-scale vessels, particularly on handline and pole and line boats, as well as small longliners and very small purse seiners;
The development of a Pole and Line Skippers Guidebook to add to the suite of existing ISSF Purse Seine and Longline Skippers’ Guides;
Engagement on critical tuna fisheries issues pertaining to the two relevant RFMOs — IOTC and WCPFC.

About the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation

The International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) is a global coalition of scientists, the tuna industry and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) — the world’s leading conservation organization — promoting science-based initiatives for the long-term conservation and sustainable use of tuna stocks, reducing bycatch and promoting ecosystem health. To learn more, visit iss-foundation.org, and follow ISSF on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram (@issf.official).

About the Walton Family Foundation

The Walton Family Foundation believes that conservation solutions that make economic sense stand the test of time. They work to achieve lasting change by creating new and unexpected partnerships among conservation, business and community interests to build durable solutions to important problems. Through its environment initiatives, the foundation is investing in two of the most important conservation issues of our time: restoring the health of the oceans through sustainable fisheries and preserving functioning rivers and the quality and availability of fresh water they provide. This work spans four initiatives: Oceans, Colorado River, Mississippi River and Coastal Gulf of Mexico. Learn more at: www.waltonfamilyfoundation.org and follow @WaltonFamilyFdn.

WCPFC committee, IATTC reach agreement to rebuild Pacific bluefin tuna population

September 5, 2017 — Representatives from countries that fish for Pacific bluefin tuna have reached an agreement on a long-term plan to restore the species’ population.

However, while conservationists applauded the pact, they said they now want to see the countries follow up their words with action.

The pact between members of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission’s Northern Committee and the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission was announced at the conclusion of the Northern Committee’s 13th Regular Session the morning of Friday, 1 September in Busan, South Korea. Details include:

Establishing a target goal of 20 percent of Pacific bluefin tuna’s historic population by 2034. Conservation officials said that would represent a seven-fold increase in the biomass over the next 17 years.
Maintaining catch quotas for the next seven years, and approving any increases in the limit only if there was a high probability it would not impact the targeted population goal.
Developing a plan by 2020 to reduce the amount of illegally caught Pacific bluefin tuna from entering the market.

The Northern Committee will recommend the WCPFC approve the measure at a meeting in December.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Tuna-fishing nations agree on plan to replenish severely depleted Pacific bluefin stocks

September 1, 2017 — TOKYO — The world’s Pacific bluefin tuna won something of a reprieve Friday, when tuna-fishing countries reached an agreement to gradually rebuild severely depleted stocks while still allowing nations such as Japan to catch and consume the delicacy.

Japan — by far the world’s biggest consumer of bluefin, eating about 80 percent of the global haul in the $42 billion tuna industry — had been resisting new rules, while conservationists have warned about the commercial extinction of bluefin in the Pacific Ocean.

Proponents of limits hailed the deal as a compromise that everyone could live with.

“It’s definitely a good first step towards the recovery of the species,” said James Gibbon, global tuna conservation officer at the Pew Charitable Trusts. “But it is only the first step. There are a lot of commitments that the countries agreed to, and we need to make sure they stick to them.”

At the week-long meeting in Busan, South Korea, the two bodies charged with shared management of Pacific bluefin — the northern committee of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission and the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission — hammered out a plan to try to put the fish back on a path to sustainability. Countries represented at the meeting included the United States, Canada, China, South Korea and Japan.

The Pacific bluefin population has been depleted by more than 97 percent from its historic high, because of overfishing.

Read the full story at the Washington Post

Nonprofits ramp up campaign to increase protections for Pacific bluefin tuna

August 25, 2017 — Ahead of an international conference scheduled next week to discuss rebuilding the Pacific bluefin tuna population, several organizations and influential leaders have urged countries to act quickly to stop what they claim is a steep decline in the species’ numbers.

For years, the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch initiative has urged people to avoid the fish because of its low numbers, but the campaign has picked up steam in advance of Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission’s Northern Committee 13th Regular Session in Busan, South Korea, scheduled to begin on Monday, 28 August. Those involved in the week-long talks centered on conservation measures for the Pacific bluefin tuna include the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Japan, with the latter country being the most dominant market for the species.

Among those speaking out included former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who said the current situation not only threatens the ecology but the economy as well.

“Unsustainable fishing isn’t just the enemy of conservation, it’s the enemy of fishermen everywhere,” said Kerry in a statement on the aquarium’s blog. “We know we can do better. That is why we should all be invested in the difficult task of turning things around and getting Pacific bluefin tuna on a path to recovery.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

NOAA: Determination that bluefin aren’t ‘endangered’ unlikely to affect quota setting

August 15, 2017 — US regulators’ recent decision to reject a petition from environmental groups to list Pacific bluefin tuna as an endangered species is unlikely to affect quota levels, which are set by international bodies.

“I don’t envision this domestic Endangered Species Act determination directly implicating the international management of this species,” Chris Yates, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s west coast assistant regional administrator for protected resources said, in response to a question from Undercurrent News.

The US government doesn’t directly determine bluefin fishing rules in the Pacific, having ceded that authority by treaty to Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC), of which major bluefin catchers Japan, Mexico, South Korea and Taiwan are also members. The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) also manages bluefin stocks in those areas of the ocean.

IATTC, which is under strong pressure from environmental groups to conserve declining bluefin stocks, recently failed to agree to new measures at a meeting earlier this month in Mexico City. But members have agreed to revisit the issue at a future meeting in Busan, South Korea.

NOAA assessment

After a recent review of the stock, NOAA scientists struck a mostly positive tone about the stock’s prospects to recover.

Yates, and Matthew Craig, who recently chaired a NOAA review into the health of bluefin stocks, said that there are roughly 1.6 million individual bluefin in the North Pacific Ocean, with 140,000 bluefin being of reproductive age and size.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

JAPAN SET TO REACH ITS PACIFIC BLUEFIN TUNA FISHING QUOTA TWO MONTHS EARLY

April 26, 2017 — Japan is on track to meet its annual Pacific bluefin tuna quota two months early, frustrating activists trying to protect the species from overfishing.

Japan, where bluefin tuna is considered a delicacy, consumes significantly more of the fish than any other country. But its quota for the year ending in June 2017 is likely to be reached as early as this month.

Despite the country’s aggressive approach to fishing, bluefin tuna isn’t cheap. At Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish auction, a 467-pound bluefin tuna sold for 74.7m yen ($700,000) in January.

The seemingly insatiable appetite for the tuna is causing concern among conservationists. Amanda Nickson, director of global tuna conservation at Pew Charitable Trusts, said Japan is irresponsible in its approach to bluefin tuna fishing, The Guardian reported.

“Just a few years of overfishing will leave Pacific bluefin tuna vulnerable to devastating population reductions. That will threaten not just the fish but also the fishermen who depend on them,” Nickson told The Guardian on Monday.

Overfishing has already caused the Pacific bluefin population to fall by 97 percent.

In 2015, Japan and other members of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission agreed to reduce their catch of immature bluefin.

Read the full story at Newsweek

Worldwide Industry, NGOs Advocate for Policy Changes in Tuna Fisheries in 2017

March 24, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — A diverse, global group of commercial and non-profit organizations has joined the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation’s (ISSF) call for immediate improvements on tuna management, including developing harvest strategies, strengthening monitoring, control and surveillance tools, and improving the management of fish aggregating devices (FADs).

A March 21 outreach letter to four tuna Regional Fishing Management Organizations (RFMO) was co-signed by 83 nongovernment organizations, tuna processing companies, fleet associations, retailers, importers and food service operators. The RFMOs are IATTC (Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission), ICCAT (International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas), IOTC (Indian Ocean Tuna Commission), and WCPFC (Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission).

These groups manage tuna fisheries in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. In 2015, more than 4.8 million tonnes of tuna were harvested, as reported in ISSF’s recent Status of the Stocks report.

Harvest strategies are based on science-based frameworks that include guidelines and limits for fishing vessels. The tools for monitoring, control, and surveillance include human observers, satellite vessel monitoring systems, electronic monitoring systems on vessels, and data collection and dissemination.

The ISSF-coordinated joint outreach letter urges the RFMOs to:

Develop precautionary harvest strategies, including specific timelines to adopt target reference points, harvest control rules and other elements
Where it is not already in place, require 100%observer coverage for all purse seine fishing vessels and all at-sea transshipment activities
Identify and sanction non-compliance with the existing mandatory 5% observer coverage requirement for longline vessels
Develop and adopt standards for electronic reporting and electronic monitoring, for all major fishing gear types, and modernize vessel monitoring systems
Develop science-based recommendations for managingFADs (fish aggregating devices), including for stock assessments
Adopt measures for using non-entangling FAD designs, to protect sharks and other non-target species

The letter requests that the above points are addressed in 2017.

The letter’s 83 signatories are:

Ahold Delhaize (Global)

Aldi North (Global)

Aldi South (Global)

American Albacore Fishing Association

American Bird Conservancy

American Tuna

ANABAC

Anova (US)

Anova Seafood, BV

AP2HI

Atunlo

Auchan Retail (Global)

BirdLife International

Bolton

Bumble Bee Seafoods

Carrefour (Global)

Casino (FR)

Caterers Choice (UK)

Chancerelle

Client Earth

Conservation International

Co-op (UK)

Coop Italia (IT)

Coop Trading (All Scandinavia)

Davigel

Edeka (DE)

Environmental Defense Fund

Eroski (ES)

Fishwise

Frinsa

Greencore (UK)

Grupo Conservas Garavilla (Isabel)

Grupo Maritimo Industrial (Grupomar)

Herdez del Fuerte

Horizon Fisheries

IPNLF

ISSF

IUCN SSC Tuna & Billfish Specialist Group

Jealsa

Kroger (USA)

Lidl (Global)

Loblaws Canada

M & J Seafood (UK)

Marks & Spencer (UK)

MDPI

Mercadona (ES)

Migros (CH)

MMP

Monterey Bay Aquarium

Morrisons (UK)

New England Seafood International (UK)

Ocean Brands

Ocean Harvesters Operative

OPAGAC

Orthongel

Pacific Alliance for Sustainable Tuna (PAST)

Pesca Azteca

Pick N Pay (South Africa)

Princes

Procesa

REWE GROUP (Global)

RS Cannery

Sainsbury’s (UK)

Salica

SEAPAC (a subsidiary of Kingfisher)

Sodexo (Global)

Spar (Austria)

Spar (South Africa)

Subway

Sustainable Fish Cities

Sustainable Fisheries Partnership

Tesco

Thai Union/COSI

Thai Union Europe

The Nature Conservancy

Thunnus Overseas Group/Conserveries des Cinq Océans

Tri Marine

Tunago Fishery, Ltd.

Warenverein (DE)

Wegman’s (USA)

Woolworths (South Africa)

Worldwise (UK)

WWF

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

Pacific Tuna Commission To Assess Shark Survival Rates After Catch And Release

February 22, 2017 — The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, or Tuna Commission, is launching a study to assess shark survival rates post catch and release.

That follows the meeting of a group of scientists and academics from around the world in Wellington last month at New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research.

A spokesperson for the project, Shelley Clarke, said a sample of about 200 sharks in the Pacific will be electronically tagged and tracked.

Read the full story at Pacific Island Reports

Members Of Tuna Commission Are Divided On Conservation Issues

December 9th, 2016 — Conservation and management measures for depleted tuna stocks in the Pacific have polarised the membership of the Pacific Tuna Commission.

The annual meeting of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, which brings together Pacific countries and distant water fishing nations, has been going all this week in Nadi, Fiji.

Its executive director Feleti Teo said it was proving extremely difficult to reach a consensus on protecting depleted tuna stocks.

For bigeye tuna the main contention is between longliners, which target adult bigeye tuna, and purse seiners which catch juvenile bigeye tuna, that tend to school with their target species skipjack tuna.

This is particularly so when purse seiners set their nets around fish aggregating devices.

Longliners have set catch limits but Feleti Teo says there have been assertions that some countries have not been adhering to them.

Management of the impact of purse seiners on Bigeye is done by banning them from fishing on FADs for several months a year but the effectiveness of this practice is disputed and any increase on banned months has been rejected by small island countries.

Read the full story at Pacific Islands Report

Fisheries Commission Takes Steps To Keep Observers Safer

December 9th, 2016 — A lot was said over the past five days in the conference rooms and hallways of The Sheraton Fiji Resort, during kokoda lunches poolside and lobster dinners at the nearby marina.

But all that talk didn’t amount to much.

The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission wrapped up its annual meeting Friday as it often has in the past, with many of its international members and nonprofit advocates frustrated by the slow progress made on pressing issues like tuna overfishing and overall accountability on the high seas.

Some left shaking their heads in dismay. Others departed with a tired indifference. A few flew home before the commission adjourned.

But some action was taken amid signs that the commission may become more functional under the leadership of Chair Rhea Moss-Christian.

Overall, she said she was “extremely pleased” with the commission’s progress.

“In comparison to prior years we were able to have a lot more focused discussions on some real critical issues, especially related to tuna management overall,” she said.

“What happened this week is really setting the new tone for how the commission addresses any stocks in critical condition or in an overfished state.”

Read the full story at the Honolulu Civil-Beat