26 ICCAT regular meeting in Palma de Mallorca
European fisheries sector advocates ‘balanced’ measures for bigeye and mako shark
EUROPEAN UNION
Wednesday, November 20, 2019, 05:30 (GMT + 9)
The European fishing sector has expressed in ICCAT its commitment to contribute to the sustainability of Atlantic bigeye tuna from EU fishing companies, their crews and the coastal communities that depend on it.
Also remember that the European purse seine fleet has always respected the quota allocated since its creation, and that it has been decreasing over the past five years. This has been expressed by Europêche, an organization of which Cepesca is a part.
According to the European employer, the community purse seine fleet is willing to assume its share of responsibility to achieve this objective, but remember that this fleet captures less than 30% of the total bigeye tuna caught in the Atlantic. Likewise, it draws attention to the fact that all ICCAT contracting parties adopt measures aimed at a rapid recovery of the species, and especially Asian longline fleets representing 50% of the catches.
According to Europêche, the European purse seine fleet is willing to accept, among other measures, a progressive reduction of fish aggregator devices (ADF) per vessel, if recommended, and as long as it is supported by scientific data.
The European organization also demands a fair and balanced application of the measures, and believes that a part of the fleet operating in the Atlantic cannot compensate, for example, the mistakes made by other fleets that have erroneously reported their catches of this species . In this regard, Europêche supports linking access to quotas with the supply of catch data and will propose to include a clause in the agreement under the name "no data no fish", to support the credibility and good management of the fishing activity .
In relation to the beautiful one, Europêche requests that the TAC be increased by 25%, from the current 28,000 tons to 35,000 tons, and according to one of the scenarios contemplated by the scientists and by ICCAT recommendation 17.04.
The mako shark, common or short-finned marajo (Isurus oxyrinchus) is a species of lamniform elasmobranch of the Lamnidae family
Shark majojo dientuso
In relation to the shark marsh shark, which is an by-catch of the surface longline fleet directed to the swordfish, Europêche supports strengthening management measures established in 2017. According to the employer, these measures, together with the fleet's efforts Spanish for increasing the number of observers, both physical and electronic, have reduced catches by 40%.
Europêche believes that the recommendation to prohibit keeping on-hook catches on board not only would not contribute to the improvement of the stock, but would also lead to the loss of the historical series of catches required for conducting the scientific evaluations. In this regard, the employer requests to condition the retention of the catches of majojo dientuso to the increase of observers on board and to a more effective control of the other non-community fleets that also capture it.
Blue shark (Prionace glauca)
On the other hand, with regard to the tintorera or blue shark of the north, Europêche emphasizes that it is a sustainable fishery, but that could be at risk of overexploitation due to the lack of effective control systems of those non-Community fleets that have increased their catches in recent years. Given this situation, Cepesca considers it convenient for ICCAT members to explore the possibility of establishing a TAC distributed according to the historical catches of each country.
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