ICCAT meeting held in Dubrovnik, Croatia.
ICCAT meeting generates 'widespread disappointment' over lack of effort to protect tuna
CROATIA
Wednesday, November 21, 2018, 00:10 (GMT + 9)
The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) meeting held in the Croatian city of Dubrovnik caused disappointment over the Commission’s lack of support for at-risk tuna resource, as reported by International Pole & Line Foundation (IPNLF).
Photo: ICCAT
The meeting had been intended to deliberate measures aimed at tackling the long-running problem of bigeye tuna overfishing. Other important propositions on the table included supporting the recovery of bluefin tuna, mako sharks and blue marlin.
The IPNLF warns that the bigeye tuna has been overfished for a number of years, and deems that the pressure on the stock continues to rise under an ineffective management regime.
Small-scale tuna fishery stakeholders from the Azores and the Canary Islands, SCIAENA, and IPNLF at the ICCAT meeting in Dubrovnik (Photo:IPNLF)
Recognising the failing measure, several ICCAT members with tuna fishing interests submitted proposals to rebuild bigeye tuna. This follows last year’s ICCAT meeting in Marrakech, where South Africa proposed emergency action. Unfortunately, South Africa’s proposal was stalled amid calls for more data.
At this year’s meeting, South Africa continued to play a leading role in working towards the sustainable management of bigeye tuna. Its intention was to rebuild the stock in the shortest time frame possible. It also wanted to improve accountability and respect the rights of coastal developing states.
Siphokazi Ndudane, head of South Africa’s delegation, and deputy director general of the Department of Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) addressing delegates during the ICCAT meeting. (Photo: IPNLF)
The European Union and Guatemala each put proposals on the table. While the interests behind all these proposals were divergent, South Africa took up the mantel to facilitate negotiations and develop one unified proposal to be discussed amongst ICCAT’s members.
The NGO highlights that the staunch efforts of the majority to see the implementation of improved management measures, including a lower catch limit, reductions on FAD fishing and adding new countries to the quota table to ensure greater accountability to the major fishing fleets were derailed.
A minority of member countries blocked these proposals, which meant that a consensus could not be reached. As a result, the IPNLF points out that there will be no effort forthcoming to reduce catches of bigeye tuna as recommended by ICCAT scientists, which in its view will threaten the future of the stock and the one-by-one fishing communities that depend on the resource.
“IPNLF came to these negotiations to try to turn the tide for the Atlantic Ocean’s hugely valuable but vulnerable bigeye tuna stock. Unfortunately, despite more than a week of long negotiations, sleepless nights and a raft of fishing nations promising to take strong action, all we were left with at the end of the meeting were empty words,” Adam Baske, Policy and Outreach Director for IPNLF, stated.
The Pew Charitable Trusts also deems the ICCAT's meeting was also disappointing, since the NGO considers the work done on Atlantic bigeye tuna makes the species 60 times more likely to collapse in the next 15 years than to recovery, jeopardizing a billion-dollar fishery.
The conservation organisation points out that on the highly sought-after eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna, it was more of the same, with a proposal adopted that would weaken monitoring and controls on a fishery vulnerable to illegal fishing.
Pew recognises that while important progress was made to fight illegal fishing, with the adoption of stronger measures on Vessel Monitoring Systems (VMS) and port State measures, and progress was made to modernize the ICCAT Convention text, ICCAT continues to show that when it comes to science-based, precautionary management, there is still much work to be done.
“This year, ICCAT continued to move backwards on sustainable fisheries. Despite its responsibility to conserve Atlantic bigeye and Atlantic bluefin tunas, it has done neither. On Atlantic bigeye tuna, rather than commit to a rebuilding plan for a highly depleted species it rolled over a catch limit that is already too high and took out the necessary stopgaps to prevent increased overfishing. This is unacceptable and continues to kick hard decisions down the road," stressed Paulus Tak, senior officer, The Pew Charitable Trusts.
"On Atlantic bluefin a measure was adopted to loosen monitoring and controls on the fishery, which could lead to further illegal fishing. It also continued to ignore needed action to protect shortfin mako sharks," he added.
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