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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 35 Number 5
January 2008
ICCAT fails to take decisive bluefin action
ANTALYA, TURKEY – Hopes for substantive progress on eastern bluefin tuna conservation went largely unfulfilled during the annual meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) in mid-November.
“In general, I would characterize this ICCAT meeting as the most disappointing meeting I have attended in 18 years due largely to the ongoing east Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin disaster,” said US ICCAT delegate Rich Ruais in a written summary of the meeting.
“The failure of ICCAT (resulted from inability) to respond to the repeated scientific advice about a pending likely collapse of the stock and the likelihood that the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) will take over bluefin management in 2010,” he said.
Armed with a House of Representatives resolution and a pending Senate resolution (later passed) supporting its position, the US delegation went into the meeting proposing a three-to-five year fishing ban on eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin to give the stock a chance to recover from severe overfishing.
But faced with overwhelming opposition from just about all ICCAT member nations except Canada, the US delegation eventually pulled the proposal.
Ultimately, ICCAT adopted a proposal advanced by Japan asking eastern Atlantic fishing nations to submit detailed reports on “how their current regulations are being implemented to comply with a fishing plan adopted in 2006,” said the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) in a statement released following the meeting.
Existing plan
The 15-year fishing plan adopted last year was put forward by the European Community (EC), whose member countries have for years been among the worst violators of ICCAT-adopted conservation measures.
That plan called for: an initial 29,500 metric ton (mt) quota that gradually would drop to 25,500 mt by 2010; a June closure only to longliners; rollover of uncaught quota to future years; and no requirement to pay back quota overages.
The plan was in stark contrast to the scientific advice offered by ICCAT’s scientific and statistical committee that called for an immediate quota reduction to 15,000 mt, along with a minimum size and a three-month spawning closure aimed at large purse seine vessels that target spawning fish to supply the region’s intensive farming operations.
EC members Italy and France closed their fisheries over the summer and the EC took action to close other member nations – namely Cyprus, Greece, Malta, Portugal, and Spain – on Sept. 19, but not before exceeding the agreed-to quota, which was nearly twice the amount recommended by scientists.
“We offered a proposal to suspend fishing to give the nations in the eastern bluefin tuna fishery time to implement the monitoring, control, and surveillance measures necessary to comply with the current regulations,” said 2006-2007 ICCAT Chairman Bill Hogarth, the head of the US delegation and outgoing director of NMFS. “The record clearly demonstrates a lack of compliance.”
The ICCAT compliance committee did recommend that the EC be penalized for its 2007 overages with a yearly deduction of 1,480.13 mt from its annual quota for 2009-2011.
Dire warnings
The overfishing situation in the east is of such serious concern to the US because satellite tagging and other scientific work, plus observations by experienced fishermen and managers, now clearly show a significant level of mixing between eastern and western bluefin stock components.
NMFS reported that eastern catches from 2002-2006 exceeded previous quotas by at least 18,000 mt per year for a total quota overrun of 72,000 mt during the four-year period.
Also during that time, huge amounts of money were invested in bluefin farming operations. Some long-time observers believe the people behind those investments, aware of the imminent stock collapse, are convinced they’ll be out of business in the near future and are now in a race to catch the last bluefin tuna.
“The 2007 season saw unprecedented reports of overfishing, under-reporting, and laundering of catch, fishing activity during the closed season, and the deployment of illegal spotter planes,” said the World Wildlife Fund in a Nov. 18 press release.
All of this is expected to prompt powerful environmental groups to push for an Appendix I listing at the 2008 CITES meeting, according to Ruais.
An Appendix 1 listing is for species threatened with extinction and, according to the CITES web site, “trade in specimens of these species is permitted only in exceptional circumstances.”
So, such a listing would completely shut down trade of both eastern and western bluefin tuna.
Japanese compromise
The bluefin proposal finally adopted by ICCAT came from Japan. According to a memo by Glenn Delaney of the US delegation, the proposal: required nations to submit their implementation plans for the 2006 ICCAT-adopted “recovery” plan; called for a meeting of all eastern bluefin industry players to talk about the stock and trade situation; and capped the Mediterranean bluefin farming capacity at half its current level.
The US attempted to negotiate amendments to the proposal. One such amendment involved closing the fishery on a nation-by-nation basis and allowing each nation to resume fishing once it filed its implementation plan. The US also argued for ICCAT to make a commitment to adopt scientist-recommended quotas following next year’s stock assessment.
“The US efforts went nowhere and the Japanese proposal was scaled back to eliminate the farming cap and was ultimately adopted,” Delaney said.
According to Delaney and others, the EC’s chief delegate attempted to intimidate the US delegation by threatening to push for additional restrictions on the US, Canadian, and Japanese western Atlantic fishery if the US didn’t back off.
“The US did not blink,” Delaney said.
In his final statement on the bluefin outcome, Hogarth said, “We hope the measures adopted at this meeting mean that all nations fishing eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna will follow through on their commitments. However, we could not be part of a consensus that this measure is enough when the looming crisis is so great.”
Ruais noted that there was an ironic twist to the last moments of the ICCAT bluefin discussion.
“Newly joined Egypt announced that it had begun to develop its bluefin fishery and will be requesting a quota share next year,” he said.
Leadership changes
With Bill Hogarth stepping down, not only from the chairmanship of ICCAT but as NMFS director (see this month’s editorial), there was relief on the part of delegates that Chris Rogers, a long-time NMFS Highly Migratory Species Division staffer and one-time chief, was named as the chairman of the ICCAT compliance committee.
Rogers is generally respected for his knowledge of the issues and for his “spine” in dealing with those who would try to undercut US positions.
Gavio Hazin of Brazil was elected the new ICCAT chairman. It is not yet clear who will replace Hogarth as the head of the US delegation next year.
Swordfish
North Atlantic swordfish was not on this year’s ICCAT agenda for any significant action. That, said Ruais, who is the executive director of both the East Coast Tuna Association and Blue Water Fishermen’s Association, was “good news.”
Last year’s ICCAT meeting resulted in US negotiators agreeing to allow 2,690 mt of swordfish quota uncaught due to extremely restrictive US fishing regulations over the last three years to be distributed over 2007 and 2008 among Senegal, Morocco, Mexico, and Belize.
According to Ruais, Belize said at this year’s meeting that it has developed a new swordfish fishery and taken 130 mt of US-transferred quota.
ICCAT also adopted a recommendation prohibiting the harvest of swordfish in the Mediterranean Sea from Oct. 15-Nov. 15, 2008.
Ruais said that Mediterranean swordfish is actually a different species than North Atlantic swordfish and the main problem in the fishery is excessive catches of small fish.
Sharks
Concerned primarily with the status of porbeagle, mako, and blue sharks, for which ICCAT has already recommended fishing effort reductions, the commission adopted several new recommendations. These included asking ICCAT member nations to:
Take appropriate measures to reduce fishing mortality in fisheries targeting porbeagle and North Atlantic shortfin mako sharks;
Conduct scientifically based research on these species; and
Identify potential nursery areas for pelagic shark species, which ICCAT can use in future deliberations on possible time and area closures and other measures.
ICCAT also directed its scientific and statistical committee to, “as soon as possible but no later than 2009,” conduct a stock assessment or a thorough review of available stock assessment information and come up with management advice for porbeagle sharks.
Other tunas
For North Atlantic albacore tuna, ICCAT recommended the establishment of a total allowable catch (TAC) of 30,200 mt for 2008 and 2009. That TAC was split between the EC, which got 25,462 mt and the US, which got 538 mt.
Additionally, Venezuela was allocated 250 mt, and Japan and other ICCAT member countries were directed to limit their catches to 200 mt.
According to Ruais, the US also pressed hard for action on the Gulf of Guinea fisheries for bigeye and yellowfin tunas because of the high percentage of juveniles being taken in these fisheries.
“This, in turn, denies fishing opportunities for US commercial and recreational fisheries on smaller numbers of mature bigeye adults,” he explained.
However, citing “the good health of the resources,” ICCAT decided to wait until next year to take up the issue of new management measures for these stocks, Ruais said.
A complete report on all ICCAT-adopted recommendations is available online at <www.iccat.es>.
Lorelei Stevens
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