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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 37 Number 4
December 2009
ICCAT progress merits praise, not scorn
This year’s critical meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) wrapped up just as Commercial Fisheries News was going to press in mid-November.
Several high-profile environmental groups immediately declared the meeting a “failure” for bluefin tuna. But nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, refusal to acknowledge the remarkable progress made toward meaningful bluefin stock recovery borders on the irresponsible.
Following the 2008 ICCAT meeting, much of the world outside of the European Union (EU) had had it with the commission, which once again adopted eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin quotas in excess of scientific advice. That triggered the current push for an Appendix I listing under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), which will be decided in March. Such a listing would effectively ban trade and kill the US export market for sustainably managed bluefin.
The only hope for averting this unjust disaster was real and substantive action on the part of ICCAT this year to rein in out-of-control fishing in the east.
ICCAT accomplished that.
Here are the facts. ICCAT agreed to a total allowable catch (TAC) limit of 13,500 metric tons (mt) for eastern Atlantic/Mediterranean bluefin, down from the 2009 limit of 22,000 mt. This TAC was in line with the most recent scientific advice stating that the quota should be between 15,000 mt and 8,500 mt or less.
Perhaps even more importantly, eastern fishing nations finally provided accurate, substantive information on their bluefin catches, at long last giving ICCAT’s Standing Committee on Research and Statistics (SCRS) the data it needed to accurately gauge fishing effort and mortality. The SCRS found that actual catches in 2008 were down significantly due to the combination of effective implementation of the bluefin stock rebuilding plan and improved enforcement. Furthermore, actual 2009 harvests will be closer to 19,000 mt than the 22,000-mt limit that caused such concern last year.
Additionally, under the continued impressive leadership of Chris Rogers of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the EU and other countries acknowledged – many for the first time – their failures to fully comply with ICCAT agreements. This represents a tremendous step forward in conservation attitude and action.
For the eastern fishery, ICCAT also, among other things: committed to adoption of a science-based TAC for the 2011 through 2013 fishing years; lengthened purse seine fishing closures during critical spawning times; and committed to reducing fishing capacity.
This was just about the best possible outcome there could have been. Requiring more at this time likely would cause sudden, severe economic dislocation for many people for questionable conservation gains.
However, environmental groups went into the meeting with preconceived notions of success that were not met. In an opening statement, a Pew Environment Group spokesman called on ICCAT to adopt a zero quota for all stocks of North Atlantic bluefin tuna for 2010. After the meeting, the World Wildlife Fund called the resulting agreement “entirely unacceptable” and renewed the call for a CITES listing.
What these groups seem not to understand is that in large part through their CITES-threat campaign, they pushed eastern fishing nations to finally embrace a conservation ethic through ICCAT. To demand a CITES listing after that achievement denigrates the forward-thinking actions of previously intractable nations, and it is unfair to western Atlantic fishermen who have played by the rules. /cfn/
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