Review of studies estimating levels of IUU fishing

In February 2015 FAO convened a workshop to consider methodologies for estimating IUU fishing at the global level. The premise underlying this workshop was that a new global estimate of IUU catch would be useful, as the 2009 paper estimating IUU-caught fish is now outdated both in terms of the 2003 estimate it provided and in terms of the changed international, regional and national context now influencing levels of IUU fishing. Concern has also been expressed over the wide range between the upper and lower estimates in the study, and over some of the methodological aspects and particularly the raising factors used to generate the global estimate

The workshop suggested that FAO could: (i) coordinate a ‘Study of IUU fishing studies’ to review the different methodologies being used to estimate IUU fishing; (ii) lead a process to develop technical guidelines for future studies so they could be conducted in a way that would allow for estimates to be combined to contribute to a global estimate; and (iii) consider indicators of IUU fishing for inclusion in FAO’s bi-annual SOFIA publication.

The resulting "study of studies", just completed by my colleagues Graeme Macfadyen from Poseidon Consultants, G. Caillart(don't know him) and David Agnew (that somehow finds time to do this type of work besides his responsibilities as MSC) is quite substantial and a necessary read, I just quote a summary.

Thefound that studies to estimate IUU catches range in geographical scope from those concentrating at very local levels, through national and regional studies, to those attempting to estimate IUU catch at a global level.

The sub-global estimates cannot be combined to generate a global estimate as they do not cover all fisheries or ocean areas, tend to focus on marine industrial IUU fishing (and often of foreign fleets), in some cases overlap in geographical coverage (but with different estimates of IUU catch being produced), and use different methodologies which are not comparable.

With respect to a number of studies providing global estimates, these tend to have especially high levels of uncertainty over the estimates produced, because as the scale of these studies increases, they either lose accuracy or lose granularity because of the assumptions that they have to make for elements for which there are no data.

A number of global (or regional) studies estimate ‘missing or unknown catch’ rather than catch that is specifically IUU. This is important as such studies have a limited biological focus/objective, which while of benefit, fails to recognize that IUU fishing is also an economic and social problem, with economic and social impacts not just biological ones in terms of impacts on fish stocks and the reliability of stock assessments based on known catches.

The inclusion of different aspects of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing in the estimates are not consistent, nor is the definition of IUU fishing in the IPOA-IUU consistently applied. The studies demonstrate considerable confusion about what illegal catch is, what unreported catch is, and what unregulated catch is, often grouping unknown catches under a single IUU umbrella.

The studies use a wide range of different sources of information including: surveillance data and compliance levels; remote sensing (e.g. VMS, AIS); logbooks; expert judgment based on experience; interviews with fishermen and enforcement agencies; observer data; onboard cameras; stock assessment models; and trade data. These sources of information have different uses in terms of different methodologies used to generate estimates of different aspects of illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing activity, for example of unknown IUU catch for known vessels, of unknown catch of unknown/unseen vessels, or of catch volumes which are known but which might nevertheless be illegal.

The study of studies concluded that most of the methods used have limitations. For example, they may be very good at estimating all the unreported catch of a particular species, but less good at identifying where it came from or what types of IUU were being used. Or they may be very good at identifying specific violation types, but poor at estimating quantities. Or they may estimate IUU catch of target species but have no estimate of the impact of IUU fishing on other species.

The study of studies also found that many of the studies are insufficiently transparent about the sources of information and weaknesses in the methods used, and make a large number of assumptions which lead to inevitable questions over the accuracy of the estimates produced.

Keep making pictures and I estimate you gonna get beaten very soon

Conclusions
The study of studies recognizes that there may be some political support for an updated global estimate of IUU catch, and for FAO to be involved in its preparation given FAO’s global mandate for fisheries. However it notes that the importance of combatting IUU fishing is now widely recognized at the global level suggesting that the advocacy benefits of a global estimate may be limited. Advocacy benefits may also be diminished due to wide confidence intervals and the likely inherent technical weaknesses in the accuracy of any global estimate; from a technical perspective a global estimate may serve little benefit and not be advisable.

The technical guidelines on methodologies for estimating (global) volumes of IUU catch suggested by the workshop in Rome in 2015 might nevertheless be useful in improving the quality of studies being completed at local, national or regional levels.

In terms of contributing towards efforts to combat IUU fishing and reduce levels of IUU catch, of potential benefit could be the development of technical guidelines on how to conduct risk-based assessments of IUU fishing. A number of frameworks for IUU risk assessments are being used by RFMOs and national administrations. But as the 5th GFTEW in Auckland observed in March 2016, there is currently no guidance on how to complete such assessments, and many developing and developed countries alike would benefit from technical guidance. The completion of IUU risk assessments could also, but need not necessarily, result in and be the basis for estimates of IUU catches and further consistent monitoring of evolution of IUU catches. The first step in developing such technical guidelines would be the preparation of an inventory and review of all existing risk assessment frameworks in use.

Indicators of IUU fishing to monitor progress in combatting IUU fishing are critically important but from a technical perspective need not include a global estimate of IUU catch as levels of accuracy and large differences between upper and lower estimates would mean that it would be difficult to statistically demonstrate any difference between global estimates prepared at different intervals.

The problem of comparison would be compounded if methodologies were changed or improved between global estimates prepared at intervals. Indicators could thus focus on other aspects such as numbers of vessels on IUU fishing vessel lists, number of countries issued with ‘yellow’ and ‘red cards’ under the EU IUU regulation, the outputs of IUU risk-based assessments, and perhaps some specific regional or local estimates of IUU catch in high risk areas based on repeatable and robust methodologies. However more consideration needs to be given as to whether it is advisable to have a single indicator of IUU fishing, or whether a ‘suite’ of indicators might be more beneficial and if so what should be included.

Recommendations to COFI
Noting that COFI has not earlier endorsed the suggestions of the 2015 Rome workshop, the findings of the study of IUU studies, or the deliberations of the 5th GFETW, the study of studies recommends that COFI consider and advise FAO on whether:

1. an updated global estimate of IUU catch is desirable and if so what would be its objective and what role FAO should have in supporting/developing such an estimate.
2. FAO should lead a process to develop technical guidelines to improve the quality of studies completed at local, national and regional (and potentially global) levels to estimate IUU catch, and whether such guidelines should revisit the IPOA-IUU definitions, not necessarily departing from them but identifying separate categories of IUU that should be considered in risk assessments and monitoring studies that are more attuned to current experience and practices.
3. FAO should support the development of technical guidelines on conducting IUU risk-based assessments.
4. reporting globally on indicators of IUU fishing would be beneficial, and if so what the process should be for proposing, agreeing and reporting on such indicators, and what role FAO should play in such a process.

Port State Measures - Legislative Template and Related Information

I wrote many times about how good it has been to maintain friends in FAO, since they produce a lot of upper-level analysis and thinking in support of the frameworks, like PSMA, so here is another good example.

I'm not too smart... but I have friends that are :-)

This one comes by courtesy of my friend Julien Million (part of the ABNJ crew) who made me aware of this new publication by Judith Swan, who was a mentor  when I started consulting work almost 17 years ago.

They just published a report/manual calledImplementation of Port State measures - A legislative template; Framework for procedures; The role of RFMOs, that can be downloaded from here. The objective of this document is twofold: to meet those challenges by providing generic legislative templates for the development of national legislation; and to explain broader context of Port State measures.

It is a substantive piece and a de rigour reading for everyone working (like me) on the implementation of PSMA and adjacent topics.

The entry into force of the FAO Agreement on Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing on 5 June 2016 reflected the successful culmination of global efforts to combat IUU fishing by setting harmonised minimum standards for measures to be taken at port. It targets IUU fishing and fishing related activities in support of such fishing, and its reach extends to areas within and beyond national jurisdiction.

Port State measures impose major sanctions, including denial of entry into port or use of port and could lead to further investigation, prosecution, license revocation and inclusion on an IUU Vessel List of a regional fisheries management organization (RFMO). The measures complement other monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS) tools such as catch documentation schemes, consolidated vessel lists and electronic monitoring systems. They also call for exchange of information with - and among - RFMOs, leading to more effective CMMs.

Many RFMOs and some countries have been active in preparing for entry into force, but the development and adoption of national implementing legislation has become imperative. At regional level, several RFMOs have adopted various requirements and minimum standards of the FAO Agreement in conservation and management measures (CMMs) that are legally binding on their members. In 2010, the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) adopted Resolution 10/11 on Port State measures that is almost identical to the FAO Agreement. Other RFMO CMMs vary in the extent of implementation of its requirements, as described in this document.

There are ongoing reviews and strengthening of the CMMs relating to Port State measures within many RFMOs, in part encouraged by their performance reviews. This document focuses on the implementation of two legal instruments - the FAO Agreement and IOTC Resolution – which, as noted above, are almost identical. Together, they are legally binding on a wide range of countries. At national level, the process of preparing for entry into force of the FAO Agreement, as well as implementation of relevant RFMO CMMs, has been challenging for many countries.

Legislative templates are provided for implementing the core and supporting provisions respectively; they are generic, and can be adapted to different legal systems, institutions and instruments.

The core provisions are those implemented directly from the FAO Agreement, and as appropriate the IOTC Resolution, and the supporting provisions are those that relate to areas such as enforcement information and evidence. The latter reflect best practices and are important for backstopping aspects of the core provisions; they may already be in national fisheries legislation or may be used for strengthening existing provisions.

Explanatory notes are given for each core and supporting provision. In order that the broader context of Port State measures can be better understood as national legislation is developed, this document also describes the development of Port State measures, a framework for national procedures and the role of RFMOs.

The US Tuna Treaty has survived

After some marathon negotiations in Auckland last week, it seems that the US treaty was rescued. This brought a welcomed sense of relieve to many of the "non-skipjack blessed countries" in the Pacific.

Moving beyond the usual negotiating power

At this stage, the agreement remains “in principle”. The US will need to rescind its earlier withdrawal, a decision that can only be made at the highest political levels. The Pacific still needs the endorsement of the Fisheries Ministers when they meet in Vanuatu in early July. Nevertheless, the negotiation delegations have both indicated their strong support for the outcomes.

A good press release from the session from my friends at FFA can be found here 

World Tuna day in Noro, Al Jazeera and US Treaty

I write a lot about Noro (my favorite tuna spot in the world), I wrote about the US treaty before, I watch Al Jazeera news very often and I know and respect a lot the people being interviewed here.

So what is not to promote about this! People I like, saying things that I believe, in a place I love!

Port State Measures Agreement is on... so what happens now?

During my brief time as an "almost senior" fishery officer at FAO, I got the opportunity to meet some very capable people that have a unique view on what are the overarching issues at world fisheries. And I'm very lucky that I maintained a good working and personal relationship with all of them, and they are patient and generous with their time and knowledge to my frequent questions. Can't thank them enough!

PSM in action... doing a boarding in PNG

I been writing about PSMA for a while now (here, here and more ) in relationship to the general work in MCS and in regards "my baby" the UAC# (Unloading Authorization Code) that has PSM as part of its DNA. But really... what it means in practical terms for the countries that signed it and for those that not.

These were the questions I asked a good friend in FAO legal, whom actually I meet in 1998!

The "magic" 25 ratifications/accessions mean that the PSMA is in force for the countries (parties) that have ratified/acceded to the agreement. It practically means that the obligations in the agreement are binding on the parties (i.e. those which ratified/acceded to and lack of implementation can be a cause for dispute and litigation by another party).

It makes practical sense for the parties to PSMA to translate the obligation and requirements under PSMA into domestic law. If a party does not have a domestic law (whether a new law or existing -old- law), that party might not implement the PSMA effectively but it does not absolve that party from its obligation and may be taken to task by other parties for not doing so.

If a State is not a party, it can still comply with the requirements of the PSMA if it finds the requirements to be logical/useful.  If it does not comply with the PSMA requirements, it does not have any responsibility or cannot be challenged by a party for not complying with the PSMA.

How this plays in the context of the WCPFC, that last year decided not to adopt a PSM CMM (Control and Management Measure) proposed by FFA>

Is hard to say if the PSM CMM proposal will be taken up and the direction the WCPFC members will take it to. However, that certain important members of the WCPFC are also parties to the PSMA including USA and the EU, Korea and Indonesia. Among the PICs, Palau and Tonga are already parties. 

I am sure that the parties to the PSMA will not want to see that a CMM of the WCPFC on PSM departs from the PSMA.  The understanding is that PNA and PIC/FFA members of the WCPFC were not keen on the PSMA because they want to have in place first the disproportionate burden CMM.  (I wrote about this here)

However, a "disproportionate burden CMM", would be hard to be implemented as a "generic CMM", it must be linked to an actual activity.  A CMM on PSM, therefore could have provisions on disproportionate burden considerations for PNA and PIC/FFA members.

Japan seems also changing its stance on the PSMA (note that Japan was not in favour of PSMA in the past) and might accede to the agreement soon. In that case, Japan will join the club of PSMA parties in the WCPFC and will put the pressure on for the CMM on PSM to be consistent with the PSMA.

Hence after some wrangling, this all could be good news for us in the region. I believe that any advances in that field are good and as good pragmatic man, i think that the perfect should not get in the way of the good.

in case you wanna know why a left FAO, was a lifestyle decision, I wrote about it here back in 2009 on my original, non-fisheries blog "Life in Development".

ISSF 2015 Annual Report - Collaboration and Advocacy

The International Seafood Sustainability Foundation’s (ISSF) 2015 annual report, released this week highlights the need to foster continuous improvement across global tuna fisheries through collaboration and advocacy.

Resource users transshipping - Resources owners hanging around for scraps

ISSF produces The Status of the Stocks report on an annual basis or more to highlight the health of the world’s commercial tuna stocks and to serve as a measuring stick for progress made and the work still ahead.

The Status of the Stocks measures the status of all major commercial tuna stocks against three key factors: stock abundance; exploitation/management; and environmental impact (bycatch).

You can see an interactive version of the report here

Some of the key numbers below:

48% of tuna stocks globally are at a healthy level of abundance
39% of tuna stocks globally need stronger management to end overfishing
78% of global tuna catch (by tonnage) comes from healthy stocks
16% of global tuna catch (by tonnage) comes from stocks where fishing is not well managed

Whatever critics may say about ISSF as an industry-funded organization, the people that put this report in place is or the highest caliber, and very respected.

More on FADs usage and politics

There still a lot of conversations about FADs and get asked about them a lot, particularly since there is a drive to ban them completely by some NGOs, while others want to go for better designs to reduce risk of entanglement of sharks, sea turtles, and other organisms while reverting from synthetic to biodegradable materials – to reduce marine debris.

In November of last year, I wrote about them from a more technical point of view here. So I explore different aspects today,  there are plenty of FADs design, but the biggest design feature is that FADs can be of 2 sorts: anchored or drifting, and both can have entangling "bits" attached so is no difference there.

Remember that the whole idea of a FAD is to create the illusion of a big "thing" floating so fish congregate underneath. People put all sorts of stuff underneath the floating part to create that illusion. One of the most common pieces of "stuff" you have on board are pieces of nets, so those are the entangling bit, but then… they are not really big, so the impact, while existent, is not massive. 

Originally, we used to put coconut tree leaves all around and make the "body" of bamboo (see the pic above where you see the netting also), but they require way more maintenance.

Making them biodegradable is great regarding marine debris, and if you get the net bit out, the entanglement accidental catch shall be reduced, but so does the life span of the FAD. The companies are putting expensive electronics on them: sun-powered sonars with satellite data transmission devices are more common than ever, and that does not play well with the concept of “biodegradable.”

In any case, it does not actually deviate from what the fact that juvenile YellowFin and BigEye loves hanging out with Skipjacks and as long as you fish with Purse Seiners you’ll catch them all… while at different ratios along the year.

When it comes to canned tuna, the best "eco-friendly" choice is Pole&Line (P&L) caught fish, and then a bit down the scale "FAD-free" purse seine caught fish.

Is being said that the volume of pole-and-line fish is not sufficient to meet the demand, I personally believe that the issue is costing. P&L makes to cans more expensive due to the higher cost of fishing per ton of product (a P&L catches in year what a Purse Seiner Catches in couple of months), and reality seems to be that the bulk of the consumers are not ready to pay X times more for can of P&L caught, just to satisfy their ethics. Hence "FAD-free" makes up the bulk of the "eco-friendly" product.

The interesting point is that "FAD-free" fishing is a return to school fishing, which the fleets were pushed away off by the “dolphin free” campaign in the 70's and early 80's. It is ironic that free school fishing is now being viewed by many NGO's as the more responsible and sustainable.

A truly wicked twist in this saga is that I heard now from various processors that with the influx of "FAD-free" fish, the canneries we are encountering a much higher percentage of fish with really “soft texture,” hence the levels of rejections and downgrading has increased.

A friend that is processing MSC certified skipjack (hence FAD-free), told me that for him MSC stands for Mushy Skipjack Canned :-)

This “soft texture” may have something to do with a higher level of enzymatic reactions, and the higher body temperature of fish caught while actively feeding in a school during the day, as opposed to fish caught while lazily circling a FAD in the very early mornings.

Free school fishing happens when tuna is feeding "out there". Skipjack feed predominantly on small pelagics, micro-crustaceans and some mollusks (squid). Stomach contents show a huge variety tho, so is obviously a highly opportunistic feeder. (It would eat its own juveniles as well)

From the fishes in the Skipjack diet, Scombers and Thyrsitops are quite represented, and both have high enzymatic contents in the stomach, that associated with the high level of enzymes in the stomach of Skipjacks while feeding (which is when are capturing them) is known to be associated with mush and soft meat.

And this is not just on tuna; we hated it when we were doing trawling for Hake and Hoki in the South Atlantic if the fish was feeding on sardines or anchoveta for the same reason, fish became a mush in no time

So, if the level of rejections has increased which means that the fish is sent to the fishmeal factory. Hence, more fish needs to be caught as to maintain production, (which is usually demand driven by contracts), so the whole situation it is going against one of its initial aims:  catching less fish.

I think that if you had FAD closures for longer or 2 or 3 times a year, then it could achieve a balance... With an estimated 80000 to 120000 FADs deployed, there is no "magic bullet" solution for this... or for anything thing else in life actually :-)

Good harvest controls news from IOTC

The Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) adopted harvest control rules for skipjack tuna on 26 May at its annual meeting in La Reunion, a decision jointly lauded by some industry groups and many environmental organizations. The proposal was led by the Maldives, with the support of Kenya, Mauritius, Tanzania and Mozambique.

Fish Market in Male, Maldives

The new rules include the identification of target levels of fishing to keep skipjack tuna populations from falling below dangerously low levels. They also call for a reduction of the use of fish-aggregating devices, ban the use of aerial vehicles, including drones, to find tuna schools and prohibit the use of lights at night to attract tuna. This decision is the culmination of months of meetings and collaboration among numerous organisations including fishers, industry groups and retailers.

And why is important for the Pacific? Because the DWFN there and those in the WCPFC are almost the same (people and countries). The WCPFC has so far only adopted a work plan for the development of harvest strategies but not much more than that (wrote about it here). We have now a concrete example of a CMM (Conservation and Management Measure) that countries have to follow.

Harvest Control Rules (HCR) are key to a fisheries management mechanism broadly named Harvest Strategies (I wrote about it here).

The proposal for a Harvest Control Rule (HCR) for IO SKJ draws on SC recommendations, including the new guidance on reference points in cases where MSY-based reference points are difficult to estimate. This proposal uses the biomass limit reference point of 20% of the unfished level (BLIM = 0.2B0) and the target biomass reference point of 40% of the unfished level (BTARG = 0.4B0), consistent with the SC advice that reference points based on depletion level should be used for stocks where MSY-based reference points cannot be robustly estimated and with international conventions and current practices followed in other tuna RFMOs.

The proposed HCR has three control parameters that can be tuned to provide better management performance with respect to the Commission’s management objectives and the underlying dynamics of the stock. The values currently proposed for these control parameters should be considered as “reference” values. After consideration of the performance statistics arising from these evaluations, the reference values currently used in this proposal may be replaced with alternative values that the Commission considers more appropriate.

It is important to note that this proposal does not seek to define a permanent HCR for the Indian Ocean skipjack tuna fishery. Rather, it will be necessary to continue work on the development of alternative, potentially better performing, HCRs as more data, improved analysis methodologies, and better scientific understanding of the stock is developed.

While the decision to preemptively create harvest control rules for skipjack before any possible population collapse could occur was lauded, a lot of people are frustrated by the lack of a similar agreement on yellowfin tuna, which (as in the Pacific) is in a worst state and in need of better management.

How Tuna is Shaping Regional Diplomacy

Many times when asked about fisheries in the Pacific, I always quickly clarify that whatever little I know is all in the operational and technical side, wich is not the "upper" framework in which the region's fisheries are contextualized. To understand that frame you have to understand the region's diplomacy and geopolitics, and one of the people in the world that understand that at its best is Transform Aqorau, the ex PNA boss.

He wrote a chapter "How Tuna is Shaping Regional Diplomacy" in a much larger book called "The New Pacific Diplomacy" (published by the Australia National University Press) that brings together a range of analyses and perspectives on these dramatic new developments in Pacific diplomacy at sub-regional, regional and global levels, and in the key sectors of global negotiation for Pacific states – fisheries, climate change, decolonisation, and trade.

Transform's chapter, and the book in general, are fundamental reading if one aim to understand better not only the global context in wich fisheries operates and the "place" it has among all the other sectors.

I just quote the start and the end of the chapter as the set a reality that many critics don't see:

The geopolitical underpinnings of the region’s tuna management provide an interesting backdrop to this analysis. All of the world’s major trading states are involved in this fishery — Japan, Korea, the United States, the EU, and China. Japan has the longest presence in the region’s tuna fishery. More recently, China has become a major force in the longline fishery. The region’s tuna resources have become a key focal point for the prosecution of the strategic geopolitical interests of these powers. Access to the region’s tuna resources allows them a physical presence over a large geographic area of the Pacific, from which they can pursue their strategic interests.

I don't think that any other region in the world has such a power asymmetry in between resources owners and resources users.  Tuna fisheries are not just fish to eat and money to be made... they are a geopolitical asset. This explains (to me at least) why subsidies are poured into maintaining a fishery that otherwise would be operated at much lower pressure levels.

He concludes:

The complexity of the dynamics in fisheries and the relationships between the Pacific Island states and their external partners is creating new challenges to the way these issues are addressed. The diplomacy of the past, the ‘Pacific Way’, and doing things by consensus is not going to work because of the complexities of the issues that the Pacific Island states now confront. These challenges raise questions about the efficacy of existing regional architectures, the role of nation states, and the need to explore models of integration that can best deliver outcomes for the various fisheries. The PNA arrangements, in which measures are legally binding and where a common currency is shared amongst VDS membership, might be a model that could be considered by other Pacific Island states. It is imperfect, but it has strengthened the negotiation hands of its members.

I have a great appreciation for the work has done at the helm of PNA, but more importantly (at least in my world view) for him personally as a very humble and calm man, I have known him for years now and learned a lot listening to him... and now reading him too!

Providing Decent Employment for Pacific Fishers

The labour rules around fishing have been in the media a lot. The vessels owners from the DWFN in the aim to maximize profits are employing people from the most desperate backgrounds and nations to pay them less every year. And this is for me the real “race to bottom” in fishing.

Welcome to a Taiwanese Longliner

It used to be a good job that was open to pretty much anyone from any background, race and social strata… just do your job right and you'll be ok. But that reality is long gone. The job paid good enough money as long as you were ready to put the effort. It was great for a young guy to make a career, or educate himself, or start a business, or support his family or just make cash to get wasted! But that reality is long gone. I don't believe that a young guy that starts fishing today could make enough money to pay for a place to live and his university studies like I was lucky to do.

I think that is very sad. Working on a fishing boat is a worthwhile experience, fishing still is one of the few apprenticeship structures that still survive. You learn from your elders, you work as a team in a not very forgiving environment… your life depends on the guy next to you and his life depends on yours. Whatever much or little I achieved so far asperson and as professional, is mostly based on knowledge I learned or strengthened by working in fishing.

Years ago I fished in the Ocean Breeze (a NZ flagged purse seiner owned by Simunovich Fisheries) with Pedro Souza a 6th generation tuna fisherman from the Madeira Islands of the Atlantic coast of Portugal. His formal education was very limited, but he had the an immense accumulative knowledge of tuna fisheries. Every sunset he would gaze the horizon and tell me what fishing would be like the next day, and he was always right.

He would see in the horizon 'signs" that for him were big as buildings, but I barely distinguish them. Needless to say, I learned a lot from him, but most of his knowledge would go with him to his grave. None of his 3 kids continued with fishing, is just not attractive enough. Money is no good, long time away from home, hard physical work... most young people in developed countries have other alternatives.  Hence going at sea is not attractive anymore except for those from really desperate backgrounds and countries that will be happy with very little, and even so they get abused.

Pedro Souza 2nd from the right, next to me Apolino Marques from Peru, the other 2 are the Gomez brothers also from Madeira. Simunovich Fisheries was a great company to work for, I have a life long respect and gratitude to them.

My colleagues at FFA worked with ILO to tackle the issue a fair labour practices in the Pacific fisheries. At least in the Pacific we are trying to make sure that Pacific Islanders get a fair share of what is after all their fish. So I was really pleased when this publication was released today. Besides the fact that they use many of my pictures.

I quote its contents:

Fishing is critical both to survival and subsistence of many Pacific Islanders, as well as long-term prosperity in the region.

Although the vast Pacific Ocean creates economic challenges for Pacific island countries – which are often small and isolated from large markets - the size and natural wealth of this ocean also contains extraordinary natural resources of fish, particularly tuna.

The Pacific Islands domestic tuna sector adds around US$446 million to the combined GDP of the region per annum, and fishing contributes to more than 10% to GDP in countries such as Tuvalu, Federate States of Micronesia and Kiribati.1

Although the Pacific region reaps important economic benefits from licensing fees for vessels catching fish in their Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) – which are home to the world’s largest tuna fishery – there are still untapped opportunities to further benefit from this valuable resource.

More than 60% of the tuna caught from Pacific Island EEZs is harvested by foreign vessels and more than 85% is taken out of the region for processing, highlighting considerable scope to develop domestic industry. Pacific Islanders could not only benefit through domestic processing, but also increased employment on fishing vessels, which currently employ relatively few workers from the region.

Skipper of a P&L vessel from NFD in the Solomon Islands, with well paid 100% local crew it was one of the happiest vessels I ever worked. Everyone had training and reasonable time at home.  Unfortunately companies like NFD are the exception and not the norm

Increasing employment in the fishing sector is a key goal…

In 2015, the Forum Fisheries Agency developed a Regional Roadmap for Sustainable Pacific Fisheries, approved by the Pacific Island leaders, which sets the direction for future management of this industry. The Roadmap identifies seven clear goals for oceanic and coastal fisheries which member states have committed to achieve over the next ten years. Among them is the important goal of creating 18,000 new jobs in the tuna industry within the next decade – which would include employment in tuna processing, vessel crew, observers and fisheries management staff.

Current figures indicate that there are around 18,000 jobs currently held by Pacific Islanders in the sector, requiring a doubling of jobs to meet the goal.

… but cannot come at the expense of unsafe, exploitative conditions

While high unemployment figures in many parts of the Pacific certainly suggest a need for greater opportunities in the fishing sector, it is important above else to ensure that these jobs are decent and safe.

Fishers commonly have conditions of work that are vastly different from those experienced by workers in other sectors. The fatality rate of fishers is typically several times higher than for other workers. Fishing is hazardous even compared with such occupations as fire-fighting and mining. Being out at sea often means being away from professional medical care, which can be particularly dangerous in the case of serious accidents.

Many fishers live as well as work in their vessels, in conditions that can be cramped and congested. There may be long periods away from home and very long working hours. Access to adequate food and drinking water – as well as to recreational facilities when fishers are off-duty – can be an issue. Fatigue, linked to long hours, has been identified as a serious problem.

There are other features that make the fishing sector different. For example, fishers are often paid on the basis of a share of the value of fish caught, in whole or in part, by the vessel (rather than receiving a fixed wage). Fishers may not be employees in the conventional sense, for a great number are owner-operators or considered to be self-employed.

All this means that the sorts of procedures and safeguards which may be in place for workers working in shore-based occupations and industries may not be appropriate or effective, thus contributing to a “decent work deficit” for fishers.

The ILO Convention on Work in Fishing (C188) was adopted in 2007 with overwhelming support from governments, workers’ and employers’ organizations around the world. It covers a broad range of issues particular to the fishing industry, including minimum age for work, minimum standards for work agreements, rest periods, standards for living conditions and food on board, occupational safety and health and basic medical care (see on Key Provisions of C188).

It is important to ensure that Pacific Island countries have a strong institutional and legislative framework, and an effective training regime to prepare and support fishers, to ensure that these workers can be safe and make a decent living through which they can support themselves and their families.

Ensuring good standards of work isn’t just good for workers, but also for business

The fisheries sector has been connected with slave labour and bondage in some parts of the world. The United States Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report has noted evidence of trafficking in this sector in parts of Asia, as well as in some Pacific Island countries.

This is a terrible risk for the fishers concerned, but also has consequences for the marketing of seafood products from the countries which are thought to be connected with such exploitation. Not only may consumers refuse to buy brands that are associated with abuse of workers, but large markets such as the EU may boycott exports from a country that is given a ‘red card’ under its illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU) regulation.3

Thus, creating an environment where fishers’ rights are protected isn’t just good for human rights. It’s also smart for maintaining good brand reputation and increasing exports.

Challenges exist to creating decent work

Employment conditions can vary significantly between different vessels and types of vessels. Ensuring good working conditions can be particularly challenging in the longline fisheries where very cheap labour is readily available and living and working conditions can be sub-standard.

However, establishing more rigorous and standardised fishers’ work agreements, or minimum elements of such contracts, is possible, and can be an effective strategy to protect fishers.

The ILO’s Work in Fishing Convention, 2007 (No. 188), and the accompanying Work in Fishing Recommendation, 2007 (No. 199) set important standards for safe and decent employment on fishing vessels (see on Key Provisions of C188 below).

Another important priority is to ensure that Pacific Island workers are properly trained and more likely to be recruited by companies operating in the region.

… But there are ways to progress forward

Some of the key priorities going forward are:

1. Establishing regionally agreed minimum standards, consistent with international standards, to ensure that countries in the Pacific are not played off against each other in a race ‘to the bottom’.
2. Developing a harmonized approach to intervention by port states with regard to labour matters on foreign flagged fishing vessels visiting their ports (see Box on ‘Understanding Key Terms’), including what to do in serious cases such as forced labour and trafficking. This would minimize negative consequences on the development of the port states’ seafood processing sectors.
3. Supporting recognition of qualifications and employment pathways. The vast majority of Pacific Island vessel crew are serving in relatively lower-level roles with limited opportunity for promotion, including to role of captains, fishing masters and chief engineers. It is important for training to be recognized not only among Pacific Island countries but by other flag States fishing the Pacific.
4. Expanding domestic processing capabilities. While recognising that not all States have the opportunity to expand or develop domestic processing opportunities, this sector has seen the greatest increases in employment over the past 10 years, specifically in Papua New Guinea but also in the Solomon Islands, Fiji, Republic of Marshall Islands and Kiribati. In particular, the sector employs a large number of women, which can be good for increasing gender parity, but should also make States consider the need for personal safety standards and child care provision. Opportunities can be further enhanced through ensuring that countries have a conducive climate for investment, well-developed career pathways and associated training and priority systems to link fisheries access to enhanced domestic investment and associated processing. Several countries already provide preferential access to locally based fleets that supply processing plants, and may have scope to require more of this fish to be landed for processing. Members can also consider requiring minimum landings by foreign access vessels. The region needs to work collaboratively on innovative and enforceable options creating decent jobs in this sector, with the support of organizations such as the FFA and the ILO.

Understanding Key Terms

What is a flag state?

A flag state in relation to a fishing vessel, is the State under whose laws the fishing vessel is registered or licensed. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, in Article 94, provides, among other things, that “every State shall effectively exercise its jurisdiction and control in administrative, technical and social matters over ships flying its flag”. This includes fishing vessels. Convention No. 188 sets out that a State “shall effectively exercise its jurisdiction and control over vessels that fly its flag by establishing a system for ensuring compliance with the requirements of this Convention…”

What is a port state?

Port states are those in whose ports foreign fishing vessels may stop. Port states which ratify C.188 may inspect the conditions of such foreign fishing vessels (‘exercising port state control’) for compliance with the Convention and may take action when conditions on board are found to present a hazard to the safety and health of the crew.

Key provisions of C188

The Convention on Work in Fishing addresses issues essential to ensuring decent work on fishing vessels. In particular, the Convention:

• Establishes the responsibilities of fishing vessel owners and skippers for the safety of fishers on board and for the safety of the vessels (Article 8);
• Sets a minimum age for work on board fishing boats and requires special protection for young fishers (Article 9);
• Requires fishers to undergo periodic examinations of their medical fitness for work on fishing vessels (Articles 10-12);
• Requires that fishing vessels are sufficiently and efficiently manned (crewed), are under the control of a competent skipper, and that the fishers on board are provided sufficient rest periods (Articles 13-14);
• Requires fishing vessels to have a crew list and fishers to have the protection of a signed work agreement, setting out the terms of the work they are performing (Articles 15-20, and Annex II);
• Entitles fishers to be repatriated when their agreements expire – and for other reasons, and prohibits making fishers pay to obtain their jobs, or blacklisting them (Articles 21-22);
• Addresses how fishers are paid and that they shall have the means to send money home to their families at no cost (Article 23-24);
• Sets standards for living accommodation and food on board (Articles 25-28, and Annex III);
• Establishes requirements for occupational safety and health, as well as a basic level of medical care on fishing vessels; (Articles 31-33);
• Ensures that fishers benefit from social security protection no less favourable than that provided to other workers in their country; and, at a minimum, provides protection in cases of their work- related sickness, injury or death (Articles 34-39).

The Stable Structure of Ocean Ecosystems

While most of what I write is about is around present-day fisheries, this paper tickled my Marine Biologist's interest. It has a very interesting illustration and conclusion.

The paper by Elizabeth Sibert and colleagues was published here, but I got the info from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography news. These researchers identify three periods of open ocean community structure driven by competition from other organisms, but not climate change.

They review 85 million years of fish fossil records (microscopic fossil fish teeth and mineralized shark scales known as denticles preserved in sediments on the seafloor) and found that the basic structure of the ocean ecosystem – the ratio of fish compared to elasmobranchs such as sharks, skates, and rays – has remained stable for periods of tens of millions of years, despite extreme environmental changes caused by climate shifts of the past.

The team found that there have been two major events in which the make-up of ocean life changed substantially. One of those events was the Cretaceous/Palaeogene mass extinction 66 million years ago to which scientists attribute the disappearance of dinosaurs. Sibert and colleagues had earlier found that the abundance and diversity of fishes exploded once many of their main predators went extinct. Shark abundance, however, neither rose nor fell at the extinction.

For the next 45 million years, the ratio of sharks and fishes remained stable, while absolute abundances of both groups rose and fell in concert alongside changes in global climate, suggesting that the structure of the ecosystem was resilient to climate change.

Another transition 20 million years ago saw a sharp drop-off in the number of sharks in the world’s oceans, alongside a dramatic increase in variability of fish abundance, suggesting that sharks suddenly spent considerably less time in the open ocean ecosystem. The researchers conclude that what triggered changes in the community structure has to do primarily with how competition with other marine organisms – including plankton, invertebrates, seabirds, and marine mammals – influenced the balance of life in the oceans.

“It is really striking that the community structure is so stable during each of these long intervals,” said Sibert. “It shows that it takes a major disaster or evolutionary regime shift to change fundamentally how the consumers in the ocean interact.”

The researchers concluded that drastic swings in global climate, including periods of intense warming analogous to what Earth is experiencing at present, did little to alter the long-term structure of the marine vertebrate community. Sibert said those episodes from prehistory, though, do not serve as a guide for potential changes in marine ecosystem structure today, since the rate of today’s modern global climate change is much faster than anything experienced in the past, and the impact of human interactions with the oceans has no precedent.

Sibert’s co-author, Scripps paleobiologist Richard Norris, said that during the transition from “Cretaceous” oceans to “Paleogene” oceans 66 million years ago saw the disappearance of highly abundant invertebrate organisms called ammonites. Their mass extinction released fishes from predation and allowed them to explode in abundance in the warm greenhouse world of the Paleogene. Later, in the Modern ocean system, the evolutionary diversification of marine mammals, seabirds and large pelagic fish that compete with sharks, alongside the dramatic increase in variability of fish production, may have driven shark abundance down in the open ocean.

EU Market Access for Fishery and Aquaculture Products

Since 2007 different international organizations have contracted me to write a Seafood EU Market Access conditions type guide/manual aimed to explain in "an easy way" what is needed to export to the EU, and it has never been an easy task.

Exporting seafood to the EU is not an obligation, and it requires an equal amount of effort by the government authorities and the private sector of the exporting countries. Compliance and understanding of the required systems of official assurances are paramount to access the EU market.

In 2007 ITC (International Trade Centre, a joint agency of the WTO and the UN) published the 2 first editions under the name of "How to export seafood to the EU", then SIPPO in 2011 requested an updated version that included a guide to the main Ecolabels called "EU Market Access (Health and IUU)  & Eco-labelling for Fishery and Aquaculture Products" and here in Spanish. Then again in early 2015 new written version was published (but without Ecolabels section) in English and Spanish but going much deeper into the EU IUU Catch Certification and displaying the very basics of the Certification of Origin.

This time, I'm going as a "solo publisher" with this updated edition of my EU Market Access for Fishery and Aquaculture Products version 2016.

This book (60 pages) is a guideline to the regulatory requirements for exporting seafood products to the European Union. It describes the EU system of official assurances, the main regulations, requirements for the Competent Authorities and operators along the value chain with regards to health and “non-IUU” Catch Certification.

Each chapter has a “basics” section at the opening, and then further subsections develop some of the most important topics related to the subject.

Import rules for fish and fisheries products are harmonized, meaning that the same rules apply in all EU countries. For non-EU countries, the European Commission is the negotiating partner that defines import conditions and certification requirements.

The two most important regulations affecting fish and fishery products seek, among other objectives, to protect final consumers’ health and close EU markets from products originated from Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing activities. Under these regulations all the fishing products have to be captured, manipulated, elaborated, transported and delivered following standards that are established by European legislators, taking into account European realities and addressed to European citizens.

While they are two “technical” regulatory sets (Health and IUU) and a trade one (Origin) that the exporting country needs to comply with, the most complex requirements are with health, so it is fair to say that the “main” authorisation requirement is the one in place for health certification.

The EU sees aquaculture products from a “farming” perspective, so their importation runs under a “parallel system” as the value chain from the farms to the processors has to comply with the same requirements for that of wild caught fish. But on top of that, they need to comply with an “extra” control system in the form of an annual control plan run by the Competent Authority (CA) on heavy metals, contaminants, residues of pesticides and veterinary drugs.

This publication should be used as an initial reading to understand the very basics. It is strongly recommended that you follow up with all the original references available in the last chapter with the links to download all the regualtions and resources.

Thailand signs the Port State Measures Agreement

Thailand, IUU fishing, the labor conditions on some of their vessels are a lot on the news at the moment (and I'm in Thailand at the moment). They have been hit (justifiably) from a lot of angles: EU IUU yellow cards, slave labor exposes, Greenpeace campaigns, and the lot.

On the way to a Bangkok party?

I'm not going to even try to dissect the whole tangled mess. But yes... Thailand has not been particularly clean, but then nor they have been push to be clean by the international community, nor the clients. They have a very efficient and effective production system, they have been good on the food safety side, but as it comes out now their fisheries controls have been quite useless.

Not surprisingly they are running every where now trying to plug holes, good on them... however there is always a risk to choke when you re trying to swallow to much. The signing of the FAO PSMA is however very significant, and if they manage to implement it, it could turn the tide a bit!

I'll quote from my friend Pramod's blog, as he is much better writer than I'm and hit the sport on the situation

Thailand is a major player in global seafood trade and processing of fishery products. Among the major fish producer countries Thailand was ranked 14 in 2012 with capture fisheries landings of more than 1.6 million tonnes. However, Thailand exhibits its dominance as the third largest exporter of seafood in the world (8.1% of the global seafood exports valued at 8079 million US$ in 2012) after China and Norway.

With bulk of the production dependent on imported raw material from other countries ports play a major role in entry of products for both legal and illegal origin. Currently, very little is known about the extent of inspections in Thai fishing ports? With a sprawling network of fishing ports spread across Gulf of Thailand and Andaman Sea, more than 15 ports cater large fishing vessels while 12 smaller ports cater imports for smaller vessels from Malaysia, Myanmar, and Cambodia. Vessels wishing entry are required to inform authorities at least 48 hours in advance and both Thai port authorities and the Department of Fisheries have the authority to deny entry for foreign vessels. In most cases, fishing boats are allowed to land.

In order to strengthen catch inspections Thailand is also developed an electronic system for the traceability of fish and fishery products (under the guidance of my friend Gilles Hosch) . Under the new Royal Ordinance on Fisheries B.E. 2558 (2015) that came into effect from November last year more intense inspections are required to deny entry to illegal vessels and strengthen inspections at ports (However is not working yet)

Thai has some massive Challenges:

• Imports of huge volumes of frozen and processed seafood from foreign countries poses challenges for inspectors at ports. More than 50% of the imports comprised of tuna, followed by frozen fish (38%), cephalopods (6%) and shrimps, etc.
• Multiple agencies are involved in fisheries inspections at ports before cargo is cleared by customs.
• There is very little information on current state of inspections at Thai ports (EU – Yellow card has led to progress on several fronts in both administration and legal contexts).
• There are significant landings of fish and seafood products of Thai origin in fishing docks spread along both coasts.
• Domestic fishing fleet of more than 50,000 trawlers. VMS transponders have already been installed on 2100 trawlers above 60 gross tonnes.
• There is currently no data on number of foreign flagged reefers and fishing vessels visiting Thai ports and what percentage is inspected each year (and here is the key issue around tuna)

For the sake of world fisheries, I hope they get the act together and are able to deliver. While we are trying to choke IUU from the capture side, countries are processing the IUU fish that still being fished, and many fingers point here.

World Tuna Forum In Bangkok - 2016

As every two years, in late May the tuna commercialisation world meets in Bangkok. Is no doubt the biggest event of its kind and a total talk fest. I'm again being invited to talk about the developments in fisheries controls we are doing in the Pacific, and this year I focused on the eCDS initiative.

I'm always ambivalent about my presence here. Almost every speaker mentions sustainability, and fight against IUU and the whole lot. But then, the DWFN keep adding capacity, finding gaps in the system, employing people from the most desperate backgrounds and nations to pay them less every year, while milking to the max the subsidies cow.

On the other side, in this world if you are not seated at the table, you are dinner. So I learn to accept that these are the rules of the game, and here is a description of the players.

I have to admit that I appreciate INFOFISH invitations to be a speaker at all their Tuna events while my message is technical, I'm very forwards with the disparity in between what I hear in this meetings and what I see in the Pacific.

Pacific Island Developing States have, in my opinion, invested proportionately much more than the DWFN in MCS and Fisheries Information Management Systems. Particularly in comparison with the nations with the highest numbers of fishing vessels in the region, such as China, Taiwan and Korea. These nations have virtually not supported any Authorities strengthening programmes, nor seem to put much effort into their obligations to control they own vessels IUU fishing, as specified by various international treaties.

This year my presentation finished with one of my usual questions:

How fair is expecting the Fisheries Authorities of small developing coastal and port states, to take on the burden of controlling the vessels of rich Distant Waters Fishing Nations that neglect their obligations, while subsidizing their fleet with amounts that far exceed the global estimates of IUU fishing? 

Purse seine bycatch utilisation in Pacific Island transhipment ports

Every two months the FFA Trade and Industry News* gets published and is always good reading (if you are into Tuna news of course!). This edition has one article that I will reproduce, since is a topic I'm quite interested, does not really gets much attention, and is related to "leakage" an effect of transhipping I wrote about before.

The utilization of purse seine bycatch that is unloaded during transshipment in Pacific Island country ports is a relatively small, but important aspect of transshipment that provides benefits to PICs. The ports of Majuro, Tarawa, Pohnpei, Rabaul and Honiara have hosted the largest volumes of transshipment activity in the WCPO, roughly one million tonnes in total in recent years**.

The utilization of purse seine bycatch (rainbow runner, oceanic triggerfish and others), as well as that of small target tunas, including those damaged during fishing or freezing operations, can provide various benefits to Pacific Island locations where transshipment takes place.

Activities relating to utilization of these segments of the purse seine catch are usually unrecorded and are for the most part unregulated. Recent estimates have put the total annual volume of bycatch and undersized or damaged target tunas that are unloaded for local consumption in the five major transshipment ports at between 1,000 to 1,500 tonnes***.

Cash or barter transactions with vessel captains, crews, middlemen and others creates a “grey economy” that can provide seasonal employment and income to the participants, as well as an additional protein source for consumers. On the negative side, unregulated transfer of bycatch from fishing vessels may have some detrimental social impacts relating to women trading sex for fish, as well as food safety issues.

The various means of unloading, distributing, marketing and otherwise disposing of this unwanted (by the vessel) catch depends on a variety of factors, some of which are unique to the port concerned. In Majuro for example, the local preference for reef fish means that brine frozen bycatch and unwanted tunas have a very limited local market. By comparison, the estimated 600+ tons unloaded annually in Solomon Islands finds a ready market in an urban population that includes a large number of low wage earners and a large central market in close proximity to transshipping activities in Honiara. In Rabaul and Pohnpei the apparent suppression of or lack of interest in regularized marketing has resulted in back-door ‘leakage’ that nevertheless finds its way to local consumers by a variety of means. One of the main concerns in Tarawa has been competition with local fishermen that has been addressed in the past by allowing only one marketer of unloaded bycatch and designating certain areas on the atoll that are off-limits to its marketing.

There are several hurdles to improving the benefits to PICs from bycatch and small tuna unloaded in transshipment ports, not the least of which is a lack of data on these activities at almost every level. In spite of most transshipment ports being in or near urban areas, these locations are small on even a regional scale and are relatively isolated from potential markets for value-added products. The loining plant in Majuro for example identified high freight costs to world markets for its fish meal as one of the major factors that make the product only marginally profitable.

Currently, the further development of reliable supply chains to local markets are also hindered by several factors, including the impacts of FAD bans which can lower bycatch volumes and changing fishing conditions that can alter transshipping patterns amongst the ports concerned. At least one organization, ISSF, has undertaken studies on a global basis to address some of these issues and has funded one pilot project in the region to help identify means by which benefits to PICs can be increased****.

It is clear, however, that ‘one size will not fit all’ situations and this needs to be kept in mind when regulatory or other controls on unloaded bycatch are considered.

* Prepared for the FFA Fisheries Development Division by Dr Liam Campling, School of Business and Management, Queen Mary University of London, Dr Elizabeth Havice, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Mike McCoy, independent consultant, all Consultant Fisheries Trade and Market Intelligence Analysts, Fisheries Development Division, FFA.

** Unpublished return port data; author’s own analysis

*** A. Lewis, pers. comm.; author’s own analysis

**** A. Lewis, Exploration of Market Viability for the Full Catch Retention of Non-Tuna Species in Purse Seine Fisheries: Interim Report, ISSF Technical Report 2014-12, ISSF, December 2014. Available at: http://www. iss-foundation.org

The Pacific Possible: A World Bank Tuna Fisheries Report

A new World Bank report (released for public comment last week at the annual Forum Fisheries Committee Meeting in Port Vila) says better management of tuna fisheries can help Pacific Island countries gain as much as US$344 million per year in additional sustainable revenues and create 7,500 to 15,000 jobs by 2040.

His future is in that tuna

While I’m always bit cautious of this type of long term projections (how do we numerically account for the key drivers of fisheries non sustainability: greed and selfishness?), it is a good read with well researched content, lots of economics (is the World Bank after all), and very well referenced to many of my friends and colleagues. You can download it here (130 pages)

I will only reference the summary here:

Pacific Island countries are endowed with valuable tuna resources. The stocks of four tuna species in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean (WCPO) – a region that includes the Pacific Island countries (PICs) and extends south below New Zealand and north to the Bering Sea to cover some 8 percent of the global ocean - collectively form the basis of one of the world’s largest and most valuable fisheries. This fishery supplies roughly 60 percent of the world’s tuna from what are some of the last healthy tuna stocks. PIC waters alone cover half of the WCPO region and supply some 34 percent of the world’s tuna catch each year, with an estimated delivered value to processors on the order of US$3.4 billion in recent years. From this endowment PICs received net economic benefits on the order of US$500 million in 2013, the majority of which came from the purse seine fishery in the waters of countries near the equator. While not distributed evenly, these benefits have been significant for some PICs, for example with public revenues estimated to be equivalent to 36 percent of GDP in Tuvalu, 32 percent in Kiribati, and 10 percent in FSM, and constituting a much higher proportion of the total public budget (e.g. 63 percent in Kiribati in 2012).

These resources will need to make bigger economic contributions to help avoid a ‘low-growth future’ in the region. Despite this tremendous natural endowment, the rate of economic growth in many (though not all) PICs has generally been low over the last decade, and if this trend were to continue over the next 25 years, with only Fiji and Palau’s gross domestic product GDP per capita growing at a rate higher than two percent annually, many PICs will fall significantly behind other countries, with per capita GDP levels only moderately higher than at present. One of the few opportunities to avoid this ‘low-growth future’ is utilization of the region’s tuna resources.

This report describes a scenario for the year 2040 where this might plausibly happen. The report aims to look forward over the next 25 years, to suggest some viable answers to the questions: in a plausible best case scenario, how much more could the WCPO tuna resources contribute to Pacific Island countries’ economies by the year 2040, and what policy decisions would be required from the countries? In complement, what would be the impacts and benefits in terms of employment and food security of these policy decisions? Building upon the 2010 Future of Fisheries report and subsequent Regional Roadmap for Sustainable Pacific Fisheries endorsed by Forum Leaders in 2015, the report develops a best-case scenario for the tuna fisheries in the year 2040, identifying the potential additional economic contributions to PICs, and proposing further detail on likely policy decisions that would need to be taken. The report does not aim to provide predictions or forecasts of the future, but rather a plausible story based on recent trends and expected future directions that can communicate risks and opportunities to inform policy-making – and thereby provide a better understanding of the policy choices in the upcoming decades and highlight present-day developments.

Illustration of the WCPO Purse Seine Tuna Fishery Value Chain in 2013 & Net Economic Benefits to Pacific Island Countries

As a starting point, some of the recent trends in the fisheries have been summarized, including:

• The purse seine fishing ‘revolution’ and the explosion in these fishing vessels and their catch. Purse seine fishing to produce canned tuna has grown exponentially in the WCPO since 1980, with 34 vessels catching roughly 100,000 metric tons of tuna that year, increasing to a steady state of some 180 to 220 vessels operating from 1990 to 2006, to 344 vessels catching over 2 million tons in 2014. Fifty-two new purse seine vessels have been built since 2010 and registered to fish in the WCPO. This fleet has grown more efficient over time (notably in the technology used for fish aggregating devices) and its composition has changed. While always largely a foreign fleet, the number of Pacific Island-based vessels is growing (notably in Papua New Guinea), combined catches by Indonesian and the Philippines vessels more than doubled between 1997 and 2014, over half of all purse seine vessels operating in the region that have been built since 2010 are from China, and during this same time catches by vessels from Japan, Korea, the United States and China, Taiwan have been relatively constant.
• Stagnation and possibly senescence in the longline fisheries. Productivity and profitability in the southern albacore longline fishery has declined, even as fishing increased sharply in 2008 with the rise of the PIC albacore fleet, which caught as much as 50 to 60 percent of albacore in 2014, and more recently the rise of the Chinese fleet. Catch rates have decreased steadily since 2009, hitting a low in 2011 for the period since 2002, with only marginal improvements since, even as new (and reportedly subsidized) vessels enter the fishery. Similarly, the trend in catches from the tropical longline fishery (much of which occurs in waters outside the jurisdiction of PICs) supplying sashimi markets has been flat. Over the period from 2003 – 2013, the catch rates for bigeye peaked in 2008 and have generally declined since (i.e. kg caught per hundred hooks on a longline), while yellowfin catch rates consistently declined from 2010 to 2013. In general, these two fisheries have provided relatively little economic benefits for PICs, which have typically captured an estimated 3 percent of the value of the catch delivered to processors, largely via access fees (though locally based longline vessels have provided higher benefits to PICs such as Fiji, Samoa, etc.).
• Establishment of a regional governing body for the tuna fisheries. The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission was established in 2004 as the body recognized under international law to govern the WCPO tuna stocks, and includes both PICs and foreign fishing nations, generally taking decisions based on consensus. However, given the diversity of actors in the Commission, consensus has been elusive in many cases – particularly on issues surrounding the distribution among members of the costs that would be imposed by proposed fish stock conservation measures, and some PIC representatives have expressed frustration when key decisions on conservation and management measures have not been taken. PIC representatives have cited the pace of decision making at the Commission as a rationale for pursuing sub-regional agreements and governance arrangements, such as the vessel day scheme implemented under the Palau Arrangement, and the recent Tokelau Arrangement.
• A new model of cooperation by a sub-regional coalition of PICs to manage purse seine fishing access. The eight Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) and Tokelau established a ‘vessel day scheme’ (VDS) to limit purse seine fishing access to their waters and allow transferability and greater flexibility in access terms. As a result, access fees are estimated to have increased by at least a multiple of four between 2009 and 2015. An estimated 13 percent of the delivered value of the total purse seine catch was captured by PICs via access fees in 2014. While these countrie have generally held the limit on purse seine access through the VDS, throughout the WCPO catch and effort continue to grow. Current information suggests that fishing effort and catch have grown more in the waters outside of the PNA countries, notably in the waters of Indonesia and the Philippines as well as some high seas pockets in 2014. Following the model of the purse seine vessel day scheme, similar arrangements have been introduced for the longline fisheries. In 2015 the same countries began a VDS for the tropical longline fishery, and in late 2014 ten countries signed the Tokelau Arrangement to implement a similar scheme for access to the southern albacore long-line fishery in their waters.
• Failures of state-led efforts to capture more of the tuna value chains in the Pacific Islands. Most of the Government-led enterprises created in the 1980s or 1990s are no longer operating, but a number of private-led companies are currently processing catch in PNG, the Solomon Islands, Fiji and to a lesser extent RMI. In total the WCPO tuna fisheries value chains likely employ less than 0.5 percent of the region’s current labor force. Less than 10 percent of the WCPO purse seine catch is processed locally, and Bangkok remains the world’s largest tuna canner (despite increasing labor costs and several PICs’ trade preference with the EU market).
• Overall, a relatively steady global market for tuna products. In terms of canned tuna supplied by the purse seine fishery and southern longline fishery, the three main markets in the European Union, U.S. and Japan are considered as ‘mature’ with relatively flat growth trends. The price of skipjack in Bangkok has declined significantly in recent years, attributed to the growth (or ‘glut’) in supply – largely from increasing catch volumes in the WCPO. The sashimi market supplied by the tropical longline fishery was pioneered by Japan but has since become global with the remainder destined for the U.S., Korea, China, the European Union and Taiwan, China.
• Decline of the WCPO bigeye tuna stock, while fishing on other stocks approaches limits recommended by scientists. The size of the region’s bigeye stock has shown a steady decline since the 1970s, reaching overfished status in the last five years. At the same time, the growth of purse seining has taken a larger share of the bigeye catch, accounting for 41 percent of the WCPO bigeye catch in 2014. The other three WCPO tuna stocks: albacore, skipjack and yellowfin, remain relatively healthy but approaching limits. While these stocks are not currently considered overfished, they cannot likely continue to support the growth in fishing effort and catch seen in the past, according to current scientific assessments.

Illustration of WCPO Long-Line Tuna Fishery Value Chains in 2013 and Estimated Net Economic Benefits to Pacific Island Countries

Against the backdrop of these trends, a number of key external forces are expected to drive the performance of WCPO tuna fisheries over the next 25 years, including climate change, markets and the economy, science and technology, demographic changes and external governance. Expected changes include:

• Climate change. Modeling conducted to date by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) on two of the region’s four tuna stocks, skipjack and bigeye, suggest that in twenty years the sizes of the stocks will not be affected by climate change, but the distribution of the stocks may begin to shift towards the central and eastern Pacific.
• Markets and the economy. Globally, the supply of tuna is approaching natural limits with little further increase expected, and likely to remain highly dependent on the WCPO region. In aggregate, demand for tuna may see a modest increase given flat supply and population growth, though with little change for canned tuna where declining mature markets may be balanced by emerging new ones. A slow increase in price for both canned and fresh tuna may be expected, but the same may also be said for fishing costs as crude oil prices are projected to double in real terms by 2040.
• Science and technology. Fishing technology is expected to continue to change in order to enhance efficiency (this is already ongoing in the purse seine fleet, and eventually would be in the longline fleet with the return of economic incentives), as well as product quality. Fisheries monitoring and surveillance technology can be expected to advance to significantly reduce enforcement costs, including expanded satellite tracking of vessels, use of unmanned aircraft systems for patrols and electronic fishing catch and effort monitoring.
• Demographic change. The overall population of the Pacific Island countries is expected to grow by some 50 percent over the next twenty years, together with rapid urbanization. In 2040 coastal fisheries production would be expected to remain largely stagnant (as it likely has since at least 2005), with concerns from SPC that a food fish gap could open in some PICs.
• External governance. The trade preferences that several PICs currently enjoy with the European Union can be expected to erode in comparison to other producers, further reducing the ability of regional tuna processors to compete in the global marketplace. At the same time, foreign fishing subsidies for tuna fleets can be expected to continue in some form in a number of cases. The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission can be expected to slowly take regulatory measures to conserve bigeye stocks, which would affect PICs.

Taking into account past trends and expected external drivers of performance, the following potential scenario can be described for the region’s tuna fisheries in 2040, dependent upon implementation of the policy decisions outlined in the Regional Roadmap for Sustainable Pacific Fisheries:  By 2040, subregional coalitions of PICs are entrenched around the three tuna fisheries – purse seine, tropical longline and southern longline, with norms of transparency and trust established, as well as flexible formulas to distribute the returns on access in order to accommodate spatial shifts in the stocks as impacts from climate change are felt. Countries continue to see greater benefits from cooperation to manage the tuna stocks as shared natural capital assets, and many count upon their annual returns for stability funds and public investment. Working together, these coalitions set targets for maintaining minimum sizes of the four tuna stocks as a basis for firm catch limits from the waters under their jurisdiction, based on regular assessments from the world’s top tuna biologists at SPC. The coalition of countries around the equator – comprised largely of PNA members - operates a well-functioning organization governed by a permanent board of global experts from within the region, with a secretariat of professional staff from strong education and training programs within the region, built over recent years with public revenues from the fisheries.

Similarly, the Tokelau Arrangement’s successor is governed by a permanent board with a well-staffed secretariat. Staff in both organizations are highly skilled and focus on managing registries of tuna catch quota, monitoring trends in use and synthesizing key biological, ecological and economic research for the board, as well as managing quota auctions. The Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) provides monitoring and surveillance support, among other services, to the coalitions, and is recognized as a world leader in cutting-edge surveillance technology.

Seeing a future constraint on returns and potential external influence from the WCPFC, PNA members moved quickly in 2017 - 2018 to invest in research and development for by-catch reduction, and to implement an innovative fish aggregating device (FAD) licensing scheme to spur industry investment – particularly given projected eastward shifts in distribution of the stock. The combination of technology advances and some initially painful catch reductions, coordinated with similar action through the longline VDS, placed the bigeye stock on a slow recovery path, with biomass eventually and steadily increasing towards 40 percent of unfished levels. Albacore, skipjack and yellowfin stocks continue to remain healthy in 2040, with a slightly stricter target reference point to provide some reserve should climate change make it necessary. These stocks provide the world’s last healthy tuna stocks and have become an even more international fishery system, as global demand for tuna products has remained steady with Asian and Middle Eastern markets becoming more mature.

Inclusion of Indonesia in the purse seine and tropical longline arrangements, and the Philippines in the former, enhanced the total allowable catch limits for both and placed most of the world’s skipjack under robust management. Strong restrictions for fishing on the high seas, linked to access to national waters, was recognized in 2020 by the WCPFC, and even with shifting stocks, high seas fishing is minimal. Some three quarters of the southern albacore longline fishery operates on rules set through successors to the Tokelau Arrangement, with profitability on an upward trend.

As an example, gradually over the years PNA members enhanced the flexibility of fishing vessel day trading among them while increasing durability of allocations – with some countries moving slowly in order to give domestic fleets time to adjust and improve efficiency (and thereby maintain contributions to local value added). Vessel days with longer duration were progressively issued to companies for higher returns (e.g. for a five-year duration instead of one year), or in some cases in consideration of local investment.

Continued trials in pooling with successful results, as well as improved auction designs, led to an agreement whereby the PNA members directed the secretariat to pool all access rights, allocated via auctions, with revenues distributed to parties via the agreed formula. Several parties opt to continue to invest access revenues in processing clusters, reducing the total fishing effort allowed and their distribution accordingly.

After years of investment in effort adjustments at the individual vessel level, the parties made sufficient preparations for a transition of rules towards a quota-system. Secondary markets for quota developed, regulated by the parties and enhancing overall fleet efficiency. Increased efficiency of fishing operations, together with the enhanced visibility and reduced risk for firms, led to significant investment in technology for higher quality products, generating value throughout the supply chain. As a result of healthy fish stocks and a well-functioning access market, revenues are between 50 percent higher and double 2015 levels in real terms (after management costs and concessions for domestic processing are subtracted).

Building off of healthy stocks and efficiently-regulated access, the PNA countries (plus Indonesia and the Philippines) have created a trading company that controls much of supply to processors and in some cases direct to retailers, supported by freezing/storage facilities in key hubs throughout the region. A number of PICs have well-developed vessel support systems that provide services to the fleets. Utilizing the pooled access regime, several countries exchange revenue distributions for allocations to secure access for coastal tuna fisheries developed through nearshore FAD networks to help ensure sufficient flow of food fish. This process began in the 2020s in advance of continued stagnation in coastal fisheries. Some countries have established dedicated coastal community funds with tuna revenues, to invest in reef restoration and key infrastructure and social goods. Additionally, countries with relatively large populations near ports or transshipment hubs, e.g. PNG and Solomon Islands, trial measures to support greater retention and local sale of purse seine by-catch (not including bigeye).

As a result of the policy strategies and decisions pursued under the Regional Roadmap for Sustainable Pacific Fisheries, public revenues are some US$177 to 345 million per year higher for PICs in real terms, after concessions for onshore investment and investments in administration, monitoring and surveillance are subtracted. A number of countries have increased local value added by a combined US$88 million per year in real terms, due to processing clusters and vessel service hubs (though many processing facilities operate under capacity and at a loss given erosion of European trade preferences). These efforts have created some 7,500 to 15,000 additional jobs in the region for processing, without including the additional employment from service hubs. Over time an Oceanic Tuna Export Company (OTEC) could develop and generate significant profits shared, as well as employment at storage facilities throughout the region.

The policy strategies leading to this potential scenario in 2040 can be summarized as:

1. Regional cooperation around a shared resource, eventually expanded to include key resource owners like Indonesia and the Philippines,
2. Hard fishing effort and catch limits that maintain valuable natural capital assets in the water (and help constrain supply and hence increase price), with proactive efforts and up-front investments to rebuild the bigeye stock before further declines,
3. Flexible access and eventually output rights for fleets, that enhance the value of the fisheries without increasing production, and provide a tool for interested PICs to lever greater foreign investment in processing,
4. Significant investment in skills and capacity to develop the world’s top tuna managers, and
5. Inclusion of coastal communities in the fisheries where feasible, through dedicated access and inshore FAD networks, as well as targeted investments maintain food security with coastal fish supplies stagnating and growing populations.

Developing a Comic/Cartoon type manual for the subsistence fisheries sector

I like to keep it varied in my job, and once in while I take on a challenge that gets me away from Tuna, CDS, IUU, Data, Information Management Systems and so on. On this occasion, I go back to basics... catching fish to eat and survive.

resource owners and users

This is a contract with an organisation that I have not work before, nor I associated a lot to Fisheries, APEC. But in their region fishis important for food security, these products that originate from subsistence or small-scale fishery require good handling practices on board in the landing phase.  Since a great percentage of the catch, up to 30% in some cases, is lost due to poor handling practices. 

Therefore, a proper management and efficiency throughout the core of the supply chain can increase the economic growth of the fishery communities, open new job positions for women and strengthen food security; consequently, we will need fewer marine resources contributing to the conservation of the fish stock.

The aim of the project is to develop a manual to facilitate the improvement of the catch condition of subsistence fishers (aiming at food security) by reducing economic losses and overfishing by the deterioration of fish products that were not properly handled, achieving that consumers receive high-quality products.

The social and economic importance of small-scale and subsistence fisheries are frequently undervalued, and they are rarely effectively managed. There is now growing consensus on how these fisheries could be managed for sustainability and to minimise the risks of crossing undesirable thresholds.

Most of these fisheries are open access in nature and entry into the fishery remains unrestricted. Small-scale fisheries are highly dynamic, labour intensive and usually not integrated with local marketing arrangements. Small-scale fishers, their families and communities are critically dependent on fish for their food and livelihood security and are extremely vulnerable to external pressures and shocks

After a substantial amount of research and in consultation with different representatives from the APEC economies, I proposed that the manual should be aimed at the common factors among their realities:

• The target audience would be the subsistence fisheries segment of their fisheries spectrum
• The key topic would be good fish handling and the application of good handling principles to catching, landing and transport to the 1st point of sale.
• The contents do no aim to set the final level for this group, but the initial level.
• Each economy will be free to add up and transform what they require to adapt it to their needs
• The manual will arrive at the fisher folk via the extension offices or the authorities.
• The manual will be delivered in open format in “Illustrator” software as to be easily adapted by the economies
• The economies can add Chapters but hopefully, maintain minimal content.
• As the "target" audience may have little education, so the way to engage them is via "cartoon" type illustrations and a "trainers aid" document that present the key messages in text
• Cartoon part would be based on the interaction of a fishers "family" approach and with examples of good and bad practices
• The Good Fish Handling message would be presented under four simple pillars:
  • Keep it clean
  • Keep it cold
  • Treat it gently
  • Move it fast

I explain this (in Spanish) in this video

Uploaded by SANIPES TV on 2016-05-05.

The Atlantic Ocean Tropical Tuna Tagging Programme (AOTTP)

Normally if don't do much in the Atlantic anymore (even if I started there). But my friend Pedro Güemes is now the Publicity and Tag Recovery Coordinator Atlantic Ocean Tropical Tuna Tagging Programme (AOTTP), a big job.

My friend Cynthia Wickham tagging tuna in middle of the Pacific    

 The overall objective of the Atlantic Ocean Tropical Tuna Tagging Programme (AOTTP) is to contribute to the food security and economic growth of the Atlantic coastal states by ensuring sustainable management of their tropical tuna resources. Specifically the AOTTP will use the information it collects on tuna stocks in the Atlantic to provide improved and updated scientific advice to developing coastal states, and other Contracting Parties, enabling them to adopt appropriate Conservation and Management Measures (CMMs) for tunas in the framework of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT).

AOTTP will collect tag-recapture, and associated data, for the main tropical tuna species in the Atlantic Ocean. Neritic species will also be tagged in an ad hoc manner. The data will be used to calculate key population parameters in support of stock assessments (e.g. growth rates, natural mortality, exploitation rates and stock structure) and subsequent management. Scientists from relevant Contracting Parties of ICCAT will be trained in tagging, data-collection and the use of tagging data in stock assessment and management.

And they are calling for tenders to the First Tagging Recovery Programme (January 2016 to June 2017) outlined in the External Action of the European Union DCI- FOOD/2015/ 361-161, and approved by the AOTTP Steering Committee.

Tuna Tagging is vital from the scientific perspective and a fun to be on. If you belong to a fisheries institution, NGOs, University and have the chance to form a consortium to tender for it, have a go.

The document tenders are here in English and here in Spanish

Here in the Pacific SPC are world references n the issue and sure we can lend a hand, even if we are way to far to provide vessels and so on. See some of the videos that show what and how is done.

A short movie about the latest PNG tuna tagging cruise in January 2012. Project funded by PNG NFA and jointly undertaken with SPC's Oceanic Fisheries Programme. For more information please visit: www.spc.int/tagging. Music by Naio. Images by Malo Hosken (SPC).

Correcting the media

When you work in Fisheries you see plenty of "horrors" more than "errors" in the press. I always find it intriguing that if in any other area of work, if you say something wrong or do not check your sources, you not doing your job right and get done, fired, demoted and so on. The press seems to get away without much... I was saddened to read an article from one of my favourites media outlets Radio NZ (RNZ) getting it very wrong.

RNZ is a well-respected media for fisheries news in the Pacific, and on this occasion, it fell below standard

In an article "Kiribati yellow carded over fishing practice"  (a fact I blogged about it here) they started right... but then they say:

" Kiribati is now only one step away from a 'red card', which would mean fish caught within its waters would be banned in the European Union."

Wrong: A "red card" which means that the country is declared a "Non-Cooperating "country"   implies that fish caught in the Kiribati-flagged vessel cannot be imported into the EU under the principles of the EU IIU regulation 1005/2008. However, as Kiribati is not authorised to export fish and fishery products to the EU since its Sanitary Competent Authority is not recognised as equivalent to those of the EU member states. Hence, even if they were to move to red, the impact would be nil since at the present there is no direct fisheries trade in between Kiribati and the EU.

"Papua New Guinea has a 'red card' and fish caught in its waters is banned from being sold in the EU"

Very Wrng: PNG had a yellow card that was lifted in October 2015. Trade in between PNG (that is authorised from the sanitary perspective) and the EU was never stopped.

I wrote to then to correct them, not because I think I'm pedantic about the true... is just that is not right. So if you get to see this type of mistakes in your media... drop them a line and correct the record.

The Tuna Billions

Taken together, the seven most commercially important tuna species are among the most economically valuable fishes on the planet. In 2014, the volume of landed tuna rose to 4.99 million metric tons with an estimated dock value of $9.8 billion. The estimated end value remained similar to that in 2012 due to falling fish prices and was $32.9 billion, or $42.2 billion when including the full canned product price.

These are some of the conclusions of a report commissioned by Pew Trust to my colleagues Graeme Macfadyen and Vincent Defaux (see and downloaded it from here as it is a very good reference)

While the overall numbers do not reflect the total worth of the seven species, they provide a useful estimate of the contribution made by commercial tuna fisheries to the global economy. A total value of tuna, incorporating sport fishing and in-the-water ecosystem benefits of living tunas, among other things, would be much higher. Therefore, these numbers should be considered conservative.

The methodology used to calculate these global estimates allows for values to be broken down by region, species, and fishing gear.

The Pacific Ocean supports the world’s largest tuna fisheries. Nearly three-quarters of tuna landings in 2012 and 2014 came from these waters, and sales of tuna from the Pacific made up two-thirds of the global dock value and end value in both years.

Commercially landed Pacific tuna generated dock values of more than $6.5 billion in 2012 and $5 billion in 2014. The end value of Pacific tuna surpassed $17 billion in both years. When accounting for the full price of canned tuna, these values were more than $22 billion (in nominal dollars) in both years. Unfortunately, only a pitiful % of that stays in the hands of the Pacific Island Countries.

Indian Ocean tuna fisheries run a distant second, followed by the Atlantic and Southern oceans. The Southern Ocean’s small piece of the global pie is a result of fisheries targeting only southern bluefin. Still, the end value of Southern Ocean tuna is significant (about $500 million).

Based on data reported to the world’s regional fisheries management bodies, the top tuna-fishing nation is Indonesia, with total landings in 2014 of more than 620,000 metric tons. Indonesia’s vessels fish mainly in the eastern Indian and western Pacific oceans, in contrast to several other major fishing nations that support large global fleets.

Most of these nations have diverse fleets, with boats that fish using all gear types and target all species. Six of the top 10—Japan; Taiwan, Province of China; the United States; Korea; Spain; and France—have large global fleets that can fish far from their home waters. The Asian and European fleets, in particular, fish all major ocean basins and land tuna at ports around the world.

The remaining top nations have very large local or regional fleets that fish in the highly productive eastern tropical Pacific (Ecuador) or western and central tropical Pacific (the Philippines and Papua New Guinea).

The large majority of tuna landed worldwide is taken by purse seine fishing vessels, which use very large nets to encircle entire schools of fish. Purse seiners target primarily skipjack and yellowfin, and most tuna caught this way is destined for canneries. Because of the large volumes of these two species captured by purse seine, this gear type accounts for more revenue than any other.

In 2012 and 2014, a relatively small number of large purse seine vessels caught approximately two-thirds of all landed tuna. That accounted for about half of the dock value and end value of all tuna fisheries.

This report represents the first attempt to develop a rigorous estimate of the global value of tuna fisheries. Because this analysis is based solely on available commercial data, the value of the world’s tuna populations likely far exceeds the $42.2 billion estimated here. Despite being a conservative estimate, the report’s findings—that tuna fisheries contribute tens of billions of dollars to the global economy—indicate the critical importance of ensuring that all commercially fished tuna species are managed sustainably.

To conserve, and build on, the wealth that tuna fisheries generate, steps are needed to improve the precautionary management of tuna populations globally. Managers should:

• Restore depleted tuna stocks to healthy levels, at a minimum.
• Determine and set science-based catch limits that prevent stocks from dropping below healthy levels to ensure an adequate buffer to account for uncertainties.
• Develop and implement a system of pre-agreed management actions that would be triggered when stock sizes drop below predetermined healthy levels; these actions should be designed to reverse trends toward excessive stock depletion.

With these three actions, fisheries managers can work to remove the short-term politics from decision-making. Doing that would secure strong financial returns in tuna fisheries while ensuring the health of marine ecosystems.