Pacific Bluefin Tuna auction in local Japanese fishing port. Photo: WWF Japan
Lima, Peru
The long term sustainability of the Pacific Bluefin Tuna fishery can only be guaranteed by following the science and halving catch limits.
This is what WWF plans to tell the two Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (RFMOs) covering the Pacific.
The 21 country and European Union members of the Inter American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) meeting this week in Lima, Peru will be faced with findings that measures of Pacific Bluefin tuna breeding stock have declined from their unfished levels by more than 96 per cent.
Also concerning is the fact that about 90 per cent of the fished species are young fish that have not yet reproduced.
The advice from experts of the International Scientific Committee (ISC) for tuna on how overfished Pacific Bluefin tuna must also be taken to the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) in Samoa in December.
Japan, Mexico, the United States and South Korea are the major countries fishing Pacific Bluefin, while the main market is Japan.
Eastern Pacific Ocean Tuna coordinator for WWF’s Smart Fishing Initiative, Pablo Guerrero, said: “Management measures in the Eastern Pacific and Western and Central Pacific are totally insufficient to preserve the Pacific Bluefin tuna stock.
“Only a 50 per cent reduction of catches and stringent measures to protect juveniles can ensure a long-term sustainability of this fishery.”
Fleet capacity
In June 2012, the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission set a quota for the tuna catch in the eastern Pacific for the first time ever.
The past year the IATTC established that commercial catches in the Eastern Pacific Ocean should not exceed 5000 metric tonnes in 2014, but only the significant reduction of this quota might help Pacific Bluefin tuna biomass to recover.
Mr Guerrero said delegates to the Lima meeting need to agree to a catch limit of 2750 metric tonnes to be consistent with the International Scientific Committee’s recommendation of a 50 per cent reduction of catches.
For tuna fisheries generally, WWF is highlighting “a clear fishing overcapacity in the Eastern Pacific that undermines the economic performance of the fleet and if not properly controlled, can lead to overfishing of the main tuna stocks”.
WWF is calling on Inter American Tropical Tuna Commission for an urgent reduction plan to meet the purse seine fishery capacity levels set out in its 2005 Plan for Management of Regional Capacity.
This is given that current recorded capacity levels exceed these limits by more than a third.
“We are hoping that the Pacific Ocean tuna fishers will see it is in their best interests to address this issue of too many boats chasing too few fish,” Mr Guerrero said.
“And avoid more draconian management measures such as extended closed seasons and areas.”
The Inter American Tropical Tuna Commission should also adopt conservation measures to reduce fishing mortality of silky sharks in order to rebuild the stock of these sharks in the EPO, and also totally prohibit the removal of fins at sea and to require that sharks be landed with their fins naturally attached.
Inter American Tropical Tuna Commission members should adopt the scientific recommendations on best practices for handling mantarays aboard purse seiners.
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