Brussels, 10/02/2016 (Agence Europe) - An external study published by the European Commission on Tuesday 9 February tries to estimate the profitability of the various segments of the EU's external tuna fleet operating under fisheries partnership agreements (FPAs) between 2008 and 2013 in the eastern and southern Atlantic, the southwest Indian Ocean and the western central Pacific.
The study says that, because of a lack of data (on the number of days at sea for certain segments of the fleet) and the impossibility of comparing the catches recorded for the economic segments and those observed and available for active tuna fleets in fisheries agreements, “a segmentation of the fleet … was not possible” on the basis of available data and taking into account fishing strategies identified during analysis and detailed FPA assessments.
The study recommends: - a description of the vessels' technical details allowing a more accurate typology of production modes and capacity, such as description of the gear according to the different typologies adopted by regional fisheries management organisations (RFMOs), engine power (main and auxiliary), hold volume, daily freezing, use of fishing aggregating devices (FADs), support vessels etc.; - an improvement in the quantity and quality of activity data, production and economic data submitted by stakeholders (vessel operators and the competent authorities on statistics and control), in accordance with the reporting requirements and European regulations relating to reporting and illegal fishing that apply to the EU's external fleet.
The authors of the study (commissioned and partly financed by the European Commission) highlight the benefits of a standardised methodology for the collection and analysis of economic data (as illustrated by the recent evaluation of the FPA protocol with Gabon) which will, in future, allow the necessary economic data for each fisheries agreement to be gathered and analysed, providing key information in negotiations of fisheries agreements with third countries.
The study provides a wealth of information: - overall, stocks of tropical tunas in the three regions of the study are at higher abundance levels than the biomass ensuring productivity is at maximum sustainable yield (MSY), with the exception of bigeye tuna stock in the Western and Central Pacific (WCPFC), and stocks of albacore and bigeye tuna in the Atlantic (ICCAT); - the impact of FADs, use of which has contributed to a marked decrease in the average size of individuals caught for major tropical tuna stocks, is currently a major issue in the three RFMOs involve; - EU vessels active in FPAs in each ocean have decreased in number between 2008 and 2013 for the three types of fleets (longliners, pole and line and purse seiners) - in 2013, 145 tuna fishing vessels were active in FPAs, comprising 41 longliners, 8 pole and line and 96 seiners, whereas, in 2008, the total was 209; - between 2008 and 2013, on average, more than 100,000 tonnes of tuna and other large pelagic species were caught annually through FPAs: the Spanish fleet, which generally has more and larger vessels, produced more than the French and Portuguese fleets for every vessel type; - for the period studied (2008- 2013), longliners made on average 20% of their catches within the Atlantic FPAs, and almost twice as much in the Indian Ocean FPAs; European pole and line vessels, which are present only in the Atlantic, made on average 50% of their annual catches in FPAs.; purse seiners made approximately 25% of their catches through the Atlantic and Indian Ocean FPAs, and over 40% in the Pacific (these averages hide significant annual variations, which appear more pronounced in the Atlantic than in the Indian or Pacific Ocean). (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)