A revised tropical tuna measure was agreed on during the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) meeting in the Cook Islands, but little progress has been made on tighter monitoring of transshipment that has a reputation for nefarious fishing activity. The decision was made in Rarotonga earlier this month as 26 member countries and participating territories convened to make rules for the world's largest tuna fishery. The measure dictates management around bigeye, skipjack, and yellowfin tuna. Pew Charitable Trusts' Glen Holmes said it is arguably the most important piece of management the WCPFC has.
As part of the measure, Fish Aggregating Device (FAD) closure periods in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean were reduced to allow more fishing. FADs are used to attract fish and closure periods mean purse seine fishing vessels cannot fish close by them. The closure periods have been reduced from five months to two and a half months in both the high seas and exclusive economic zones (EEZs). Holmes said the change will put more pressure on tuna stocks, but it is not a concern for his organisation because the science says it is okay.
"Essentially, the closures have been halved to what they previously were and that will result in much higher economic returns for the islands who are selling days for the purse seine fleet," he said. Holmes said "as a trade-off" the longline fleets can also increase how much they can fish but subject to increasing observer coverage - whose job it is to ensure ships are adhering to fishing rules.
Before the meeting, observer coverage for the longline fleet was 5 percent, while the purse seine fleet has 100 percent coverage. "If they increase it to 10 percent coverage, they will get a 10 percent increase on the amount of bingo that the limited members can catch," Holmes said.
World Wildlife Fund Western and Central Pacific tuna programme manager Bubba Cook said observer coverage should be increased purely on science and compliance - not so longline vessels get more opportunities to fish. "That's not the reason we should be increasing observer coverage we should be increasing observer coverage on principle alone."
The Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) director Manumatavai Tupou-Roosen said the new measure was carefully balanced. In 2022, a management procedure, which is a pre-agreed framework for making fisheries decisions, was adopted for skipjack tuna.
Source: https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/505287/nations-agree-on-revised-tuna-strategy-but-concerns-over-vessel-monitoring-remains