The EU Commission welcomes the ”decisive action” by ICCAT to reduce bluefin tuna TACs, while fuming environmentalists call it a “sell-out”.
Meeting in Recife, Brazil, The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) decided to reduce the annual Atlantic blue-fin tuna fishing quota to about one-third of the current levels, thus rejecting calls for a complete fishing ban for the threatened stocks.
The ICCAT said a complete ban would only encourage illegal fishing.
Scientists across the world have warned that the bluefin tuna stock has fallen to almost 15 percent of its pre-industrial-fishing levels, and conservation groups have said that only a fishing moratorium could save the stocks for the future.
“ICCAT’s credibility was in the hands of the Contracting Parties during this meeting. Now, they have shown their inability to properly manage large pelagic species by adopting measures that respond to both political pressure and the industry’s demands. They’ve ignored the real status of fish stocks and the immediate risk of losing this tuna species”, Xavier Pastor, Executive Director of Oceana in Europe, said in a statement after the decision.
“The risk of collapse has already been addressed in previous assessments, and there is scientific consensus about what’s happening right now. ICCAT has now definitely lost its credibility and its CITES’ turn to avoid the collapse of this species”.
The ICCAT decision also included one additional month of fishery closure for purse seiners, and a commitment – “vague”, according to the OCEANA statement – to close the fishery if the next scientific stock assessment shows a serious risk of collapse for this species.
Earlier this fall, the EU Council rejected a proposal from Monaco, supported by the Commission, to halt the bluefin tuna trade temporarily. The Commission now chose a positive note for its reaction to the ICCAT decision to keep those fisheries, albeit with lowered quotas.
A Commission statement pointed out that the reduced TACs would be accompanied by “drastic cuts in fishing capacity”, and Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg said he was confident that “this unprecedented set of concrete and ambitious steps will mark decisive progress in managing and conserving this migrating stock in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic”.
“Our goal is to ensure the return to a healthy bluefin tuna stock and a viable and sustainable fishery for our fleet. Admittedly, ICCAT had a very tough task this year, but it has certainly risen to challenge”, he added.