WWF 12 Dec 08;
Pusan, South Korea - The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) today over-rode the advice of its science committee and rejected the recommendations of its chair in choosing only minor reductions in catch for bigeye and yellowfin tuna and watering down or deferring most measures for achieving reduced catches.
The decision comes just a fortnight after the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) and the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) both also rejected their own scientists pleas for significant cuts to catches in the face of collapsing or falling tuna populations.
Measures adopted by the WCPFC will see a catch reduction of less than seven per cent for 2009 on WWF estimations, well down on a recommendation of a 30 percent cut which it was conceded would still not have eliminated overfishing. Among the discarded, delayed or reduced measures were high seas fishing closures, restrictions on gear types, and important initiatives to better record and verify catches and crack down on rampant illegal fishing.
It is an especially galling rebuff for WCPFC chair Glenn Hurry, who earlier this year chaired the independent review of ICCAT that found that body’s management of the Mediterranean bluefin tuna fishery “an international disgrace”. WWF commends Mr Hurry, also Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Fisheries Management Authority, for his efforts worldwide to promote scientifically based fisheries management.
“Disappearing, collapsing and declining bluefin tuna fisheries world wide for the high value sushi market are increasing demand for bigeye and yellowfin tuna,” said WWF’S Peter Trott, who attended the Pusan meeting.
“What we are seeing now is an international tragedy where the failure of one fishery adds to the pressure on others, while some fisheries nations use their weight to subvert virtually the entire international system for long term sustainable fisheries management.”
WCPFC’s failures will have severe impacts on Pacific island states where foreign fishing fleets are having catastrophic impacts on the viability of their fishers and coastal communities, a point underlined at the meeting when Papua New Guinea announced its intention of denying access to its waters for fishing vessels from nations not subscribing to high seas closures.
“In the equatorial Pacific we can see the crash coming and a block of major fishing nations seem determined to fish their way into it,” said Trott. “The implications are disastrous for the small island communities in the region , where millions of people depend on healthy tuna stocks for food and livelihoods.”
Commission agrees to cut tuna catches in Pacific
Michael Casey, Ap Environmental Yahoo News 12 Dec 08;
BANGKOK, Thailand – A commercial fishing commission agreed Friday to cut the catches of bigeye tuna in parts of the Pacific Ocean, a small step in an effort to save a threatened species that is a favorite among sushi lovers.
But environmentalists lambasted the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission's decision to reduce catches by only 10 percent in each of the next three years. They had sought an immediate 30 percent reduction that scientists advising the body had recommended.
"Commissions charged with protecting tuna populations are proving completely ineffective and inadequate," said Mark Stevens, senior program officer at the World Wildlife Fund. "If they are willing to ignore the advice of their own scientists, then we can have little faith in their ability to prevent the demise of this species."
Stevens warned that allowing the bigeye population to dip any lower could be disastrous, though he said the lack of accurate catch data from fishing nations made it difficult to set a time frame when it might go extinct.
The monitoring and verifying system agreed to by the commission's 34 member countries and territories to ensure the cuts is effectively voluntary. Fleets have the option to have observers on boats or to report their catch to their home country.
The WWF's Peter Trott criticized the system, saying plans to put monitors on boats would cover as little as 5 percent of the fishing fleets for all but two months of the year. It will make it almost impossible to prevent countries from underreporting their catches, he said.
The commission is responsible for regulating commercial fishing in the region, which stretches from Hawaii to Asia and as far south as Australia.
Commission Chairman Glen Hurry said the agreement reached Friday in Busan, South Korea, was not perfect but was a "step in the right direction."
"I get 30 percent over three years. I am OK with that," Hurry said regarding the plan that requires reductions of 10 percent in 2009 with similar cuts planned for 2010 and 2011.
Hurry said the measures adopted would be reviewed next year and possibly toughened based on scientific evidence "if these don't seem to be delivering the right result."
The commission also agreed to ban huge floating or sunken platforms known as fish aggregating devices for two months in 2009 and three months in 2010. It also voted to bar fishing fleets from two high seas areas near Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands that are currently not under the jurisdiction of any country.
These measures would likely help bigeye as well as yellowfin tuna populations because they swim together as juveniles.
The reductions are probably the most far-reaching announced by any of the several bodies tasked with regulating tuna fishing around the world.
But since each commission comes up with its own set of rules and they often conflict, conservation of a globe-trotting species like tuna is made even more difficult. The Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission, for example, failed to agree last month on any measures to conserve depleted yellowfin and bigeye tuna in the Eastern Pacific.
Anouk Ride, a spokeswoman for the Pacific Island Forum Fisheries Agency, which represents 17 countries and territories including Australia and New Zealand, said the final agreement reached Friday was a good compromise.
Ride said the commission had a "difficult battle" with the United States, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the European Union, which fought against many of the measures.
"But at the end of the day, cooperation was reached," she said. "It will definitely make a difference in efforts to reduce fishing and result in commitments to manage the fishery better."
The Western and Central Pacific region accounts for 55 percent of the world's tuna production with a value of $4 billion to $5 billion. But tuna stocks in the region have fallen since the 1960s, driven down by increasing numbers of industrial fishing fleets.
