ICCAT Committee Wants Heavy Cut In Current Bluefin Quota’s ff

By Atuna

The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT) has been recently pressured to present a stock assessment for bluefin tuna under its management. Shortly after the European Union announced its refusal to support the listing of the species on Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), the Commission’s Standing Committee On Research And Statistics (SCRS) met in Madrid, Spain, to present such results.

The report produced by the SCRS concludes among other things, that the lack of reliable data has made bluefin stock assessment unsound to the eyes of any layman reading it. The substantial under-reporting of catches until 2007 of both small and large fish further undermined the assessment greatly: “These factors, combined with the lack of reliable historical information for several fleets and for the Mediterranean as a whole, means the stock could not be monitored with confidence and, therefore, severe depletion could easily go undetected”, stated the document.

Nevertheless, the Committee assessed the stock in 2008 as requested by the Commission, but warned that, unless substantial improvements are made in the catch and effort statistics, there is little scientific need to perform a stock assessment every two years because many results are based on equilibrium assumptions. In addition, any change in exploitation or management will take several years to have a detectable effect on the biomass because bluefin tuna is a long lived or slow growing tuna species. This explains why the Committee’s diagnosis and advice remained similar to that of 2006 and 2007.

However, even considering uncertainties in the assessment, the Committee concluded that continuing fishing at the 2007 fishing mortality rate is expected to drive the spawning stock biomass to very low levels:

“The increase in mortality for large bluefin tuna is consistent with a shift in targeting towards larger individuals destined for fattening and/or farming. The decline in spawning biomass is evident from the results of analyses that used both reported and adjusted (for underreporting) catch and (…) appears to be more pronounced during the more recent years, although estimates for the last years should be judged with caution due to high uncertainties and lack of data”.

In face of  the results, the Committee recommendations would imply much lower catches during the next few years (on the order of 15.000 MT or less), but the long-term gain could lead to catches of about 50.000 MT. According to the report, for a long lived species such as bluefin tuna, it will take some time (> 10 years) to realize the benefit.

The Committee further believes that a time area closure could greatly facilitate the implementation and the monitoring of such rebuilding strategies: “Clearly, an overall reduction in fishing effort and mortality, as stated in 2008, is needed to reverse current trends. The 2007 fishing capacity largely exceeds the 2007 Total Allowable Catch (TAC), but the 2008 catch capacity might be under 2008 TAC if illegal fishing did not occur. However, the potential catch capacity is clearly above TAC. Therefore, management actions need to be pursued to mitigate the impacts of overcapacity as well as to eliminate illegal fishing. Deferring effective management measures will likely result in even more stringent measures being necessary in the future to achieve the Commission’s objectives”.

The EC Fisheries Commissioner, Joe Borg, has publicly given ICCAT member countries the full responsibility to manage bluefin stocks. The question is whether they will agree, for this time as last, to follow the scientific advice to be presented at the next Regular Meeting on November 6^th 2009.