The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) took a first step on Monday, November 25, to better protect bigeye tuna in the Atlantic by reducing catches for two years, but failed to reach agreement on the management of shortfin mako shark stocks.
The bigeye tuna population is in poor shape: it is a commodity appreciated in both canned and sashimi products, is overfished and suffers from high juvenile tuna mortality.
In 2018, ICCAT had failed to reduce bigeye tuna quotas. This year, after eight days of very tight negotiations in Palma de Mallorca, its members agreed on a programme for the recovery of stocks by 2034.
Currently, the seven main bigeye tuna fishing countries (including the EU and Japan) are subject to a total allowable catch (TAC) of 65,000 tonnes. However, this TAC does not apply to other countries, resulting in an increase in catches to 78,000 tonnes (t).
The compromise reached foresees a TAC for bigeye tuna of 62 500 tonnes in 2020 and 61 500 tonnes in 2021, but also that more countries will have to limit their catches.
As there was no agreement on the allocation of the TAC between countries, a system has been put in place that takes into account historical catches.
Thus, in 2020, the main fishing countries (those that catch more than 10,000 t per year) will have to reduce bigeye tuna quotas by 21%, those that catch between 10,000 and 3,500 t will have to reduce them by 17% and those that fish between 1,000 and 3,500 t will have to reduce quotas by 10%.
Jérôme Jourdain, from the Union des Armateurs à la Pêche de France (UAPF), explained to EUROPE that European seiners have always respected their bigeye tuna quotas. "So a double measure applies to us: we have to share the pie with more people and we will have to reduce catches by 21%, while other countries do not respect their quotas", he regretted.
"This is good news for bigeye tuna, but we are disappointed that overfishing continues", said Grantly Galland of the NGO Pew Charitable Trusts, who argued for a TAC of 50,000 t.
Albacore and FADs. For yellowfin tuna, it was decided to maintain the TAC at 110,000 t in 2020.
In order to reduce fishing mortality of juvenile bigeye and yellowfin tuna, ICCAT has decided to reduce the maximum number of 'fish aggregating devices' (FADs) deployed by vessels (their number will be limited to 350 per vessel in 2020 and 300 in 2021, compared to the current 500) and to ban the use of FADs for two months in 2020 and three months in 2021.
No respite for the shortfin mako. Another issue of this meeting was the future of the shortfin mako shark. The world's fastest shark and endangered globally, it was protected this summer by CITES, which sets the rules for international trade in more than 35,000 wildlife species.
But ICCAT has not been able to reach an agreement to better protect it. A proposal by a dozen countries (including Senegal) to prohibit the "retention on board, transhipment or landing" of North Atlantic shortfin mako sharks has been met with counter-proposals from the EU and the United States. The EU had proposed a minimum TAC of 500 tonnes for small-scale fisheries. There is therefore no TAC and it will be up to each Contracting Party to set its own rules on catches of shortfin mako sharks.
"It is a disgrace that fishing powers like the EU and the United States oppose a broad coalition of countries and scientists advocating strong measures against by-catches of shortfin mako sharks", the WWF criticised.
ICCAT has also established annual TACs for blue sharks (39,102 t for the North Atlantic and 28,923 t for the South Atlantic).
The parties have planned new rebuilding programmes for blue marlin and white marlin/roundscale spearfish, with a TAC of 1,670 t for blue marlin and 355 t for white marlin/roundscale spearfish, starting in 2020. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)