ICCAT ADOPTS IMPROVED APPROACH TO BLUEFIN TUNA MANAGEMENT

 

The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas has a checkered record when it comes to marine fish conservation.

ICCAT's 48 member nations, known as “contracting parties,” have historically sought to protect their individual own economic and political interests while also attempting to protect tuna, billfish, and other highly migratory species.  Management measures for such fishes are supposedly based on scientific advice provided by ICCAT’s Standing Committee on Research and Statistics, and established by a vote of the contracting parties.  Once established, such measures must, in theory, be adopted by all of ICCAT’s member states.

Although that sounds good on paper, in practice things aren’t that cut-and-dried.  The treaty that created ICCAT allows contracting parties who disagree with the outcome of a vote to note an “objection” within six months after such vote occurs.  Such objection triggers additional procedural steps before the management measure in question becomes effective; more importantly, it exempts objecting member states from what would otherwise be their obligation to comply with the measure in question.

If one or more important fishing nations object to a particular management measure, the effectiveness of such measure will be seriously degraded; if the objecting nation plays a large enough role in the fishery, or is joined by other contracting parties that, collectively, account for a significant portion of overall landings, a management measure can easily be rendered ineffective.  For that reason, it is rare for ICCAT to adopt management measures that face significant opposition.  Instead, such measures end up being negotiated, and the outcome of such negotiations is often based more on economic than scientific outcomes, and does far too little to protect the stock in question.

ICCAT’s failure to take serious action to protect bluefin tuna in 2008 led Dr. Carl Safina, a well-known marine conservation advocate, to quip that the acronym “ICCAT” actually stood for the “International Conspiracy to Catch All the Tunas.”  However, ICCAT's most recent actions, taken at a meeting that concluded last week, suggest that such moniker might no longer be deserved, at least with respect to the bluefin.

That’s because, at its November 2022 Special Meeting, ICCAT agreed to adopt a science-based management strategy that would allow it to set bluefin tuna quotas without the need for further votes and negotiation.  As described in a recent NOAA Fisheries release,

“ICCAT adopted its first management procedure (MP) for both stocks of Atlantic bluefin tuna.  An MP is an approach to fisheries management decision-making that applies a pre-agreed framework for actions, such as setting catch limits, designed to achieve specific objectives.  These objectives could include meeting conservation obligations and providing stability in fisheries.  This is the second MP adopted by ICCAT following years of hard work by ICCAT scientists and managers.  This advancement will allow for more effective management of stocks in the face of identified uncertainties.  The MP establishes total allowable annual catches for the years 2023 through 2025 for western Atlantic and eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna.  It includes a stable TAC of 2,726 metric tons for the western area.”

The European Union was, if anything, even more ebullient about the new bluefin management strategy, saying

“After years of research, analysis, modelling and testing, the newly adopted management procedure for the iconic Bluefin tuna will be more transparent, inclusive and robust.  Based on the recent scientific knowledge of the stock’s reproduction and migration patterns, the new management procedure has been developed with an active engagement of EU scientists and with EU funding.  For over a decade, the EU has been contributing to the ICCAT Atlantic-Wide Research Programme for Bluefin Tuna (GBYP) through substantial voluntary financial contributions.  The new management procedure provides the basis for total allowable catches (TAC) of 40,570 tonnes for the eastern stock, [with a share of 21,503 tonnes for the EU].”

Many considerations go into the management procedure; one page on the ICCAT website lists at least twenty documents that are relevant to the calculation.  But they all lead to a final goal, a “management strategy evaluation” that will produce a management procedure that makes it more likely than not that neither stock of Atlantic bluefin tuna experiences overfishing in any fishing year.  NOAA Fisheries explains that a management strategy evaluation

“is a scientific tool that allows fishery managers, scientists, and stakeholders (e.g., industry, non-governmental organizations) to simulate the workings of a fishery system to test how well different harvest strategies (a.k.a. management procedures) achieve agreed management objectives for that fishery.”

So far, the management procedure that has emerged from the ICCAT meeting is getting favorable reviews.  Immediately after the conclusion of last week’s ICCAT meeting, the Pew Charitable Trusts announced that it

“praised the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) for adopting a modernized fisheries management plan for Atlantic bluefin tuna, one of the most valuable fishes in the world.

“ICCAT—a regional fisheries management organization responsible for the governance of Atlantic bluefin, tropical tunas and other open ocean species of the Atlantic—adopted a management procedure that will use science-based data to inform managers of how much bluefin can be caught each year and shift ICCAT from reactive decisions based on short-term needs to proactive rules designed to secure a sustainable fishery over the long term.

“By adopting the management procedure, which is also known as a harvest strategy, ICCAT is moving away from annual, and frequently politicized, catch quota negotiations that contributed to years of decline and overfishing of Atlantic bluefin tuna.  Significantly, the management procedure will allow the western Atlantic population of the species to achieve a healthy level and lock in the recent recovery of the once highly depleted eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna population.”

The World Wildlife Fund struck a similar note, issuing a release saying that

“The newly adopted harvest strategy will allow ICCAT to manage both the East and West Atlantic stocks based on pre-agreed actions including the increase or decrease of catch limits in line with the status of the stocks and relieves management decisions from short-term political pressure.  This will contribute to maintaining the stability of the fisheries and markets, while minimizing the risk of depletion for the tuna population in the future.”

When both the harvest-oriented European Union and international conservation organizations agree on the merits of a management approach, it is likely that such approach is well crafted, and will benefit both the bluefin tuna and tuna fishermen.

While that doesn’t guarantee that the new management procedure will be successful, it does suggest that it offers the bluefin a far better chance at long-term sustainability than any other management approach that has been tried so far.

We can’t ask for much more than that.