MOSTLY GOOD NEWS AT 2024 ICCAT MEETING

 

Every November, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas holds its annual meeting of the parties, where representatives of all the ICCAT member nations get together to discuss the management and harvest of Atlantic tunas and “tuna-like species,” a term that has been interpreted to include swordfish, billfish, and various sharks.

Not too many years ago, the ICCAT meetings were fairly depressing.  The delegates would spend most of their time debating how to get the last drop of blood from a stone, fighting over their relative shares of what was then a badly depleted Atlantic bluefin tuna stock, which shares would end up being exceeded with impunity by many of the contracting nations.  Things got so bad that for a while, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, some conservation advocates suggested that the acronym “ICCAT” really stood for “International Conspiracy to Catch All Tunas.”

But ICCAT has gotten better since then.

While various nations still try to hold up important conservation initiatives in an effort to protect their own domestic fleets (including a regrettable, multi-year effort on the part of the United States to block badly needed efforts to protect the shortfin mako shark), ICCAT can also point to some successes, including its effort, begun in 2000, to rebuild the North Atlantic swordfish population, its 2021 moratorium on shortfin mako shark harvest (which first required that the White House change hands) and, yes, even the ongoing and so-far successful recovery of the Atlantic bluefin tuna.

This year’s ICCAT meeting appears to have built on that progress.  NOAA Fisheries calls 2024 a “banner year for the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas,” and points to “several breakthrough outcomes, including new management measures for Atlantic tropical tunas and North Atlantic swordfish.”

The agency went on to note that

“Following years of hard-fought negotiations, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas adopted a comprehensive conservation and management measure for Atlantic tropical tunas, including bigeye, skipjack, and yellowfin tuna…The Commission adopted new control measures and allocation decisions that reflect the diverse interests within ICCAT’s tropical tunas fisheries for the first time after years of unsuccessful negotiations…

“ICCAT also adopted the first management procedure for North Atlantic swordfish.  A management procedure establishes an agreed framework for future management decision-making—such as setting catch limits—designed to achieve specific objectives.  These objectives could include attaining conservation goals and maintaining stability in fisheries.  ICCAT continues to make significant progress in adopting management procedures for several stocks under its management, thanks to years of dedicated effort by scientists and managers.  This advancement will allow for more effective management of stocks in the face of identified uncertainties…”

NOAA Fisheries wasn’t alone in its assessment.  The European Union’s Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries used the terms “landmark” and “breakthrough agreement” to describe the tropical tunas measure.  While the EU announcement emphasized the measure’s benefits to the fishing industry, it also observed that

“The EU also continued to lead towards science-based management measures with the adoption of a recommendation for a Management Strategy Evaluation for tropical tunas.  This will allow ICCAT to develop a long-term science-based approach to managing bigeye, skipjack, and yellowfin tuna populations, ensuring that these species are healthy and abundant.”

The outcomes of the 2024 ICCAT meeting also won praise from members of both the conservation and commercial fishing communities.

The HarvestStrategies.org website, which is managed by The Ocean Foundation’s International Fisheries Conservation Project, stated that

“Management procedures (MPs) were the big winner at the meeting, with progress made on eight different stocks.  This remarkable achievement affirmed ICCAT’s commitment to transitioning its management to MPs as a more science-based and transparent approach to achieving long-term sustainability for its $5.4 billion fisheries.”

Esther Wozniak, who works on international fisheries issues for the Pew Charitable Trusts, praised the adoption of the management procedure for swordfish, which will replace annual negotiations of swordfish quotas with a system that will make science, rather than politics, the primary driver of management decisions.  Ms. Wozniak said that,

“Thanks to leadership over many years from Canada, the United States, and the European Union, ICCAT has demonstrated that long-term, sustainable visions for healthy fisheries can extend across all commercial fish populations.”

The fishing industry’s praise was more measured, with industry spokesmen hailing actions which immediately benefitted fishermen, but also ruing the fact that such actions were needed, while expressing concern that further measures will be required.  Thus, The Fishing Daily reported fishermen’s approval of ICCAT's decision to shorten the period when fish attracting devices, or “FADs”—floating objects that attract and hold schools of tuna, making them vulnerable to purse seines—could not be used from 72 to 45 days, noting that ICCAT scientists

“could not demonstrate the moratorium’s effectiveness in protecting the bigeye tuna stock and concluded that no moratorium [on FAD use] was necessary to maintain the species stock health, as the Total Allowable Catch (TAC) and its distribution has proven sufficient.”

However, the same scientists recommended that a FAD moratorium of no less than 30 days remain in place to protect yellowfin tuna.

The initial restrictions on FAD use apparently caused economic harm to African tuna canneries, forcing many to shut down and leading to the loss of thousands of jobs.  It also caused about half of the European purse seine fleet to abandon the fishery, with two European operations, which allegedly could not successfully compete with Asian vessels, going out of business. The Fishing Daily quoted Anne-France Mattlet, Director of the European Tuna Group, who noted that

“It is unfortunate that it took such severe socio-economic impact to prompt a reduction in a moratorium whose effectiveness remains unproven.  While this decision comes too late for two European shipowners, who have already been forced to cease operations, we hope it will provide some relief to the remaining European tropical tuna purse seine fleet.  We also see the European Union’s stand for science-based but also socio-economically proportionate measures as a good sign…”

The Fishing Daily also quoted Xavier Leduc, President of Europeche Tuna Group, who warned that ICCAT must do more to improve compliance with management measures, saying

“To ensure EU fleets are not subject to unfair competition and sustainable fishing practices, it is essential that third countries operating in ICCAT’s waters implement basic control, monitoring, and compliance measures.  This includes a comprehensive list of operational vessels, increased observer coverage, and the establishment of a high sea’s [sic] inspection and boarding scheme…”

Such criticism was aimed at some Asian countries that block compliance proposals at ICCAT while allegedly failing to

“adhere to…fundamental measures to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing.”

Two Asian nations, Japan and China, also drew criticism for their opposition to a measure that would prohibit fishermen from removing shark fins from the carcasses of sharks before they are landed, and thus make it more difficult to engage in shark finning, an activity which sees the valuable fins cut away from the shark and retained, while the rest of the shark is dumped back into the ocean.

The proposal to prohibit the removal of fins at sea was made by the United States, Brazil, and Belize, and gained the support of 42 of ICCAT’s 52 members.  However, because it required unanimous consent to be adopted, China’s and Japan’s resistance were enough to defeat it.  Belize attempted to circumvent the requirement for unanimity by calling for a vote, something that normally doesn’t happen at ICCAT but, perhaps because Belize’s action caught the other nations by surprise, the proposal nonetheless failed.

Sonja Fordham, president of Shark Advocates International, stated that she was “deeply, deeply disappointed” in the defeat of the measure “despite support from an unprecedented coalition of countries,” and admitted that

“We are exasperated that a strong, enforceable shark finning ban has once again been blocked by essentially two countries, despite overwhelming support and clear scientific advice.”

Still, despite such setbacks, the 2024 ICCAT meeting must be viewed as an overall success.

The next question is whether such progress will continue, particularly in view of the change of administration in the United States.  Historically, the U.S. has been a conservation leader at ICCAT.  However, while it never completely abandoned that role, the United States definitely took a step back during the years between 2017 and 2020.

History may very well repeat itself over the next four years.