By Atuna
The jointed tuna RFMOs workshop on bycatch was held in Brisbane, Australia, earlier this month under a whole lot of pressure from environmental organizations to be more than just a “talking shopâ€. A good summary would be that the meeting was perceived quite differently by the different participants and stakeholder, being:
- The CPCs (member countries of the RFMOS) were happy that a technical working group aiming at harmonizing bycatch data collection and assessment methods in a data-poor context was settled.
- By contrast, some Environmental NGOs were very disappointed that such a meeting did not firmly recommend bans on Fishing Aggregating Devices (FADs), and that the coverage rate of the observer programmes was keeping at a too low level.
Therefore, the general opinion about the workshop was that, although not very productive, it was very interesting, and significant discussion-topics were put on the table.
Representatives of the Western Central Pacific Tuna Commission (WCPFC) believe that the bycatch workshop served as a positive medium to share information on currently ongoing initiatives. In their opinion the Inter American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) was well advanced in not only developing mitigation measures on paper, but in their implementation. These comments are most likely based on the fact that IATTC is the only RFMO that has 100% observer-coverage.
There was considerable discussion on special gear and mechanical/technological measures to reduce bycatches of many species such as turtles, seabirds and sharks, but more research was needed on the reduction of juvenile bycatches during the fishing of target species. This latter point was a major concern to industry as it had impacts on the future target fisheries while the bycatches of associated species of turtles and seabirds were of more importance to NGOs and to RFMOs that had progressed down the line to where their target species were well managed.
During the workshop, all parties shared the need to address bycatch issues and the key monitoring mechanism for initiatives to reduce by catch levels appeared to be regional observer programs, and these were costly. Observer coverage levels came under considerable discussion and differences of opinions between participants, with a general agreement that monitoring of bycatches would require higher levels of monitoring by observers - than that for regular target fisheries - and the minimum of 5% such as the IOTC program effective on July 1st 2010, was not going to meet the requirement.
The gap between scientific advice and action became more evident during this meeting. IOTC scientific committee representatives argued that all the RFMO’s scientific bodies have worked intensively during the past recent years to propose scientifically-based recommendations in order to mitigate the effects of tuna fisheries on non-target species. This led to the adoption by the RFMOs of binding resolutions, which are finally very weakly, or even not, enforced by the member countries: “To be short I would say that scientists have contributed to set up instruments (that can still be improved) but those instruments remain in the toolboxâ€, said IOTC.
Members of WCPFC also emphasized the contradiction of having those meetings if countries are not willing to comply with measures:
“It seems to be interesting that participants, especially when desiring to express frustration with lack of action, criticize the RFMOs meaning the Secretariats without the realization that it is the members themselves who make up the decision making processes in the RFMOS and the Secretariats have little to no decision-making authoritiesâ€.
For that reason, some other organizations are going for a different approach. The Coral Triangle Fishers Forum for Market-based Partnerships for Bycatch Reduction and Responsible Fishing Practices, also taken place these past weeks, puts strong focus on the fishermen, instead of fighting for regulations in an attempt to show the benefits of reducing bycatch and promoting incentives for such.