Byline: The Pew Charitable Trusts

To Fight Illegal Fishing, Countries Need Effective Port Controls

Categories News, NewsPosted on

Addressing issues that aren’t exclusively fisheries-related might help a nation lower the risk of having illegally caught fish pass through its ports.
Photo: The Pew Charitable Trusts/Danita Delimont, Getty Images

Republished from The Pew Charitable Trusts, 16 July 2019

by Dawn Borg Costanzi

One of the biggest threats to ocean health is illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, which accounts for up to 1 in 5 wild-caught fish. IUU fishing imperils the sustainability of the world’s fisheries and the resilience of marine ecosystems, and harms the economies of coastal nations that depend on healthy fish populations.

While catching every illegal fisher would be a monumental task, there are numerous other ways to combat this destructive activity. Almost all commercially sold fish must come through a port en route to market. And that makes port State measures—a term for port controls on foreign-flagged fishing and related vessels—a critical part of the solution to IUU fishing.

Numerous governments, international bodies, and nongovernmental organizations have been working for years to implement the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA)—the first legally binding international agreement specifically targeting IUU fishing—which came into force in 2016. But in most cases, those various parties don’t have full knowledge of how States manage their ports, their exposure to illegally caught fish, and their progress in combating the problem. Greater awareness of those efforts and issues across governments and organizations could lead to policy and procedure adjustments that would help prevent illicit catch from entering port.

To better understand which port States are most at risk of having IUU-caught fish pass through their ports, The Pew Charitable Trusts commissioned a peer-reviewed study to gauge that likelihood and determine whether the State has taken certain actions—such as becoming a party to the PSMA or complying with conservation and management measures within regional fisheries management organizations—to keep IUU vessels from entering port or using port services. The study also looks at global vessel traffic to identify the busiest fishing ports around the world.

The study, “Any Port in a Storm: Vessel Activity and the Risk of IUU-Caught Fish Passing Through the World’s Most Important Fishing Ports,” published in the Journal of Ocean and Coastal Economics last week.

The results show that, in most cases, countries with high income levels and low perceived corruption face a lower risk of IUU-caught fish passing through their ports—demonstrating how addressing issues that are not strictly fisheries-related could improve a State’s ability to effectively mitigate IUU risk. The research also found that every region harbors weak and strong performers, and States that improve governance face less risk from foreign vessels attempting to land or transship illegal catch in port. The study considers publicly available information and does not attempt to measure IUU activity in specific ports or countries but suggests where more effective implementation of the PSMA would have the greatest impact.

Last week, around the second annual international day dedicated to the fight against IUU fishing, 61 countries met for the Second Meeting of the Parties to the PSMA in Santiago, Chile, to discuss the developments in implementation of the agreement and how best to close their ports to high-risk vessels.

Governments around the world have much work to do to translate PSMA requirements into national practice; they can take tangible steps now—starting with designating ports for use by foreign-flagged vessels and making information about port State measures publicly available—to help reduce this illicit activity.

How Protecting Sharks Helped Countries Reap Benefits

Categories News, NewsPosted on

The Philippines government recognized whale sharks’ importance to tourism and has since worked to better manage and conserve all shark species.
Photo: The Pew Charitable Trusts/Steve De Neef

Republished from The Pew Charitable Trusts, 16 July 2019

by Jen Sawada

This is the fifth in a series of articles commemorating a decade of shark conservation work.

Even as momentum builds for protecting sharks through regional and international bodies, many countries have opted to act with their own conservation laws. The Philippines, for example, developed a framework and passed a bill to protect these vital animals, and Fiji is finalizing regulations to prohibit commercial fishing of most shark species within its waters. Both countries have championed listings of sharks and rays by the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

The Pew Charitable Trusts caught up with A.A. Yaptinchay, director of Marine Wildlife Watch of the Philippines, and Aisake Batibasaga, former fisheries officer of Fiji’s Ministry of Fisheries, to hear how decisions for domestic protections for sharks and rays have propelled the two countries into the role of shark champions.

Q: How did your country decide it needed to protect and manage sharks?

Aisake Batibasaga: I became aware of the less-than-honest practices of fisherfolk and exporters fishing Fiji’s waters. Illegal fishing practices were rapidly depleting shark populations across Fiji. Shark bycatch was increasing, as local fishing crews were complementing their meager incomes [by selling] fins. Working with local, regional, and international partners, we set out to develop strong policies to better conserve and manage vulnerable and endangered shark species. We continue that work today in the hope that sharks remain an integral part of our marine ecosystem, our tourism industry and economy, and our culture.

A.A. Yaptinchay: The Philippines lies within the Coral Triangle, the center of marine biodiversity in the world, and sharks are very much an important part of the Philippine seas. We have seen sharks utilized as food, from directed fishing and bycatch, as well as tourism. We were concerned that there is not enough information available or management measures in place to ensure that our shark populations are not negatively affected.

Q: What hurdles did you overcome to help get these measures passed?

Batibasaga: Lack of resources, expertise, and funds to provide wider coverage and coordination between fisheries, border patrol, and customs officers. Organizations such as the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA), the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), and the Pacific Community (SPC), and especially Pew have been instrumental in providing technical expertise, support, and resources for advocacy and strategic policy development in Fiji and the region—and for this we are deeply thankful.

Yaptinchay: We try to employ a participatory and interdisciplinary approach in the development of the 2020 Roadmap and the Shark Conservation Bill, but it is difficult to get input from all the stakeholders, including sectors like the cosmetics industry. Transparency and shared information are critical. The bill is with our politicians now, and momentum has waned because of the national elections in May 2019, but we expect progress after the campaign period.

Q: What changes have you seen as a result of these policies in the perception of sharks within your communities?

Batibasaga: Due to strong advocacy and strategic outreach on the ecological, economic, and social significance of sharks, Fijians are beginning to understand that protecting their sharks and reefs is tantamount to protecting the fish the locals eat—the Pacific islanders’ supermarket. Sharks are no longer just a culturally iconic predator but a vital part in the marine ecosystem and economy.

Yaptinchay: Creating a conservation framework allowed all sectors to participate in shark conservation. In 2014, a coalition of NGOs and government agencies created the Save Sharks Network Philippines, which increased awareness and support by educating and engaging the public and government agencies.

Q: What management measures are in place or in progress in your country?

Batibasaga: Protections for CITES-listed species are under the Offshore Fisheries Management Act and corresponding regulations. Fiji is finalizing regulations under the act to protect many shark and ray species from commercial fishing. Fiji also has both a regional and national plan of action for sharks and implements the conservation and management measures from the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, including a ban on catching silky and oceanic whitetip sharks.

Yaptinchay: Aside from the National Plan of Action—Sharks, the Philippines’ 2020 Roadmap targets increased information, regulation, awareness, and governance on issues related to shark conservation. One output is the Shark Conservation Bill, which was approved in the House of Representatives in February 2019. The Philippines also recognizes all sharks and rays listed in CITES as fully protected in the country, and the entire island of Cebu also passed local legislation to protect all sharks, rays, and chimeras.

Q: How have domestic measures helped make your country a global leader in shark conservation?

Batibasaga: Fiji government representatives are not only the voice of Fiji but the voice of the region. Protecting sharks is protecting our marine biodiversity, which is integral to our way of life. The Pacific must lead the way, since we are among those most prone to adverse environmental challenges. Our shark and ray regulations will act as a model for our Pacific neighbors and countries around the world. We may be a small island country, but we will continue to champion conservation efforts because our way of life depends on the actions we take today.

Yaptinchay: The Philippines has been championing species for listing in both CMS and CITES. We realized that the Philippines is in a unique position to influence our neighboring countries, particularly the ASEAN region, to support more international treaties and commitments and use the outputs and learnings from our projects as a means of promoting shark conservation globally.

International Fisheries Managers’ Response to Performance Reviews Insufficient

Categories News, NewsPosted on

Photo: Greg Lecoeur.

Member governments not taking enough recommended steps to improve sustainability

Republished from The Pew Charitable Trusts, 1 May 2019

Overview

The parties to the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement (UNFSA) abide by an important principle: They will follow the agreement’s legal obligations to “ensure the long-term conservation and sustainable use of straddling fish stocks and highly migratory fish stocks.” The major tuna regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) provide a mechanism for these governments to work together to manage important global fisheries and further the goals of UNFSA.

Combined, these bodies manage pelagic species, including tunas, marlins, and sharks, in 90 percent of ocean waters. Collectively, RFMO members have agreed to cooperate—through their respective agreements—on precautionary, science-based fisheries management within their Convention Areas to ensure fish stock sustainability and ecosystem health. Still, many valuable stocks are experiencing overfishing or are depleted.

In 2006, 2010, and 2016, the parties to UNFSA reviewed the agreement’s implementation to strengthen cooperation and management. Each time, they urged the RFMOs to conduct regular independent performance reviews to evaluate their work, suggest improvements, and identify best practices.1 All of the major tuna RFMOs followed suit. The Pew Charitable Trusts has long supported the review process because its independent nature provides a vital contribution to the regular business of each RFMO. Pew has examined the recommendations included in the independent performance reviews of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC), and the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC). Then these recommendations have been compared to subsequent RFMO actions to design and adopt harvest strategies and implement science-based stock management and compliance measures, as well as to end and prevent illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

The results are difficult to quantify, but across all three RFMOs, not enough recommendations have been implemented, particularly to end and prevent overfishing and to rebuild depleted stocks. Progress has been slow toward implementing comprehensive harvest strategies, which use science-based models to set pre-agreed fishing limits that automatically change based on the health of fish populations. Parties to the RFMOs have been unable to reach consensus across other key areas as well.

ICCAT, IATTC, and WCPFC must do a better job of implementing performance review recommendations to meet the terms of the U.N. agreement and to promote sustainable fisheries management in their areas of jurisdiction.

ICCAT

ICCAT’s first performance review in 2008 was heavily critical, particularly of the way the RFMO managed eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna.2 Management of this stock has improved, perhaps as a result of that review, along with a major push to implement an international trade ban on Atlantic bluefin. Recent trends indicate that the population is recovering. ICCAT deserves credit for implementing some of the review panel’s recommendations, which have contributed to these improvements.

Management of other important stocks, however, has not followed a similar pattern. Despite calls in the 2008 and 20163 performance reviews to better manage Mediterranean swordfish, the new management measure adopted in 20164 did not follow the recommendations in either review. This outcome represents a significant setback to the recovery for this stock: 100 percent of ICCAT’s own scientific models conclude that Mediterranean swordfish is overfished and that overfishing continues to occur, and the analyses show that the recovery plan adopted in 2016 has zero percent chance of success by 2025.5

Similarly, insufficient action has been taken on tropical tuna species, despite calls in the 2016 review for ICCAT to solve problems associated with those stocks, including juvenile mortality associated with fish aggregating devices. That review highlighted the importance of adopting management plans with high probabilities of success and shorter timelines than had previously been adopted by ICCAT managers.

In the three annual ICCAT meetings since that review, the Commission has been unable to adopt an Atlantic bigeye management plan in line with this recommendation, and the stock continues to decline: 99.5 percent of the most recent scientific models conclude that bigeye is overfished and that overfishing continues to occur. The stock is now 60 times more likely to collapse than to recover by 2033.6 The review also recommended that the total allowable catch (TAC) for Atlantic yellowfin be subject to an allocation scheme to prevent the TAC from being breached and to provide an incentive for member Parties managing their fishing fleets. ICCAT, however, has not even considered such an allocation scheme, and the TAC has been breached by as much as 41,000 tonnes in recent years.7 Scientists agree that this has almost certainly been detrimental for the yellowfin stock.

The ICCAT performance reviews also called for better management of the billfishes (blue and white marlin, and sailfish), but implementation of this recommendation has been mixed. Sailfish management is now more closely aligned to the scientific advice, but management of both marlins must improve.

On the other hand, ICCAT has adopted the recommendations of the performance review panels when it comes to data collection for the billfishes and sharks. At the 2018 Commission meeting, the compliance committee considered new, simplified data collection forms for these species. The Commission adopted this new format to improve the information that managers and scientists have about these vulnerable stocks.8

The 2016 review made eight recommendations to facilitate a move from setting ad hoc annual catch limits to a harvest strategies approach. This priority for the panel should also be a priority at ICCAT and all RFMOs. ICCAT has made progress on some of these recommendations, such as adopting a harvest control rule for North Atlantic albacore and setting a timeline to develop rules for other stocks. However, recent decisions to delay the timeline for priority stocks and limited funding have prevented further gains. These developments, combined with an inability to make the difficult but necessary annual decisions on tropical tunas and billfishes, are bad for ICCAT fisheries.

ICCAT’s response to operational recommendations by the review panels has been mixed, but more complete than the response to stock management recommendations. In addition to the new billfish and shark forms, ICCAT strengthened its port state measures9 and improved its vessel monitoring systems to require that locations be reported more frequently.10 On the other hand, observer coverage continues to be lower than warranted for longline fleets, despite findings from the reviewers that increased coverage is required to better understand the impact of ICCAT fisheries on bycatch species.

ICCAT should more closely follow the numerous recommendations of the panels on continuing issues regarding compliance with Commission rules. In addition, examples of persistent non-compliance require more responsive action from ICCAT. The compliance committee needs to dedicate more time to reviewing Parties’ compliance or non-compliance with operational requirements, such as observer coverage, use of fish aggregating devices, and other non-quota issues.

IATTC

IATTC was the last tuna RFMO to conduct an independent review, completing its first review in 2016, eight years after ICCAT’s initial review.11 While most recommendations were weighted toward procedural improvements, others focused on changes that would boost the conservation and management of the species under IATTC jurisdiction.

However, in the three years since the recommendations were delivered, little action has been taken. For example, recommendations for procedural changes, such as easing the requirement for consensus to allow some voting and establishing a fisheries management committee to advise the scientific advisory committee (SAC) and the Commission, have not been addressed. Both of these recommendations could help address the declining bigeye tuna stock.12 While IATTC adopted a basic harvest control rule to protect bigeye in 2014, managers refused to apply the rule when it should have been triggered by a stock assessment in 2018. Instead, they began a review of the scientific models, delaying any potential fishing reductions for at least two years.

IATTC also did not act on a recommendation to balance the leadership of the SAC by adding a co-chair to work alongside the Secretariat’s executive director, who currently leads the committee. In addition, a recommendation to adjust schedules for the SAC and the compliance committee to allow for sufficient time for the decisions and recommendations of both to be analyzed and ready for action by the full Commission has not been consistently implemented. These simple timing changes would significantly improve the Commission’s ability to fulfill its mission.

On the management side, the review included clear recommendations to help bolster fish stocks. IATTC has had a robust observer program for large purse seine vessels for several years, but the analysis recommended increasing coverage of small purse seine vessels as well. In addition, the review recommended that the longline observer coverage requirement be increased from the current 5 percent of fishing activity to a level that allows observers to see the impact of tuna fishing on rare species. To date, only one nation has met even the 5 percent requirement.13

Neither of these recommendations has been implemented. Proposals were introduced at the 2018 Commission meeting to increase longline observer coverage but none achieved the necessary support. While the review recommended augmentation of the observer program, electronic monitoring should be considered as a complementary tool to human observer coverage. The IATTC outsources observer coverage for transshipment, but the contract does not require observation of transfers within the WCPFC Convention Area, even if they include IATTC-managed stocks.14 That loophole can result in significant data gaps.

The review panel recommended that IATTC develop management proposals for the main shark species (e.g., blue sharks, silky sharks, etc.), but the Commission has not yet acted on this. 

Finally, although the Commission did endorse a recovery plan for Pacific bluefin tuna consistent with the review’s recommendations,15 IATTC will need to focus on making sure that the plan is implemented successfully and that there is full compliance by all Parties. In general, strengthening IATTC’s compliance regime so there is greater accountability for flag States and greater consequences for persistent non-compliance would bolster the conservation and management of all stocks under the Commission’s jurisdiction.

WCPFC

Members of the WCPFC agreed to undertake a performance review in 2008, four years after the RFMO’s Convention entered into force. The work was postponed for several years because of budget constraints, but the review was completed and presented to the Commission at its annual meeting in 2012.16

On harvest strategies and conservation matters, WCPFC has made progress implementing recommendations to improve the collection and timeliness of data and to develop a regional observer program. Still, some recommendations have not been addressed or require further implementation. For instance, the review lauded the WCPFC for its commitment to develop limit and target reference points and associated harvest control rules to maintain stocks at healthy states. The panel encouraged that work to continue.

Since then, the WCPFC has adopted a definition for a limit reference point for tuna species and expanded its work on the harvest strategy approach for tuna species or fisheries. To do that, it has adopted a Conservation and Management Measure (CMM)17 and an annual workplan.18 Although progress is being made, much work remains. Members should cooperate and collaborate to ensure that completion of the workplan is a priority.

With respect to individual species management, the WCPFC record is mixed. The RFMO adopted a rebuilding plan for Pacific bluefin tuna in 2018, following several years of stalemate over how to arrest the decline of the stock.19 But it has not adopted limits on mortality of southwest Pacific striped marlin, nor revised its north Pacific striped marlin measure, as recommended by the review.

On compliance, the review recommended WCPFC fully implement its compliance monitoring scheme (CMS). Since the review, the Commission has updated its CMS several times, most recently by adopting a new scheme in 2018.20 The CMS now includes provisions to ensure members are accountable for responding to alleged infractions by their vessels and a mechanism to identify capacity constraints that can hinder compliance in developing States. Still, the WCPFC has not revised its CMS in accordance with the review’s suggestion to develop a range of penalties for non-compliance, or to explore market-related mechanisms, possibly including prohibitions on trade, to address unsustainable fishing. It also has avoided codifying the CMS into a permanent CMM, as opposed to extending it on a year-to-year basis.

On efforts to fight IUU fishing, the WCPFC has made progress by adopting a CMM on port state measures and requiring the use of unique vessel identification numbers. The latter includes a requirement that smaller vessels fishing outside their exclusive economic zones have International Maritime Organization numbers, as recommended by the review. On the other hand, WCPFC just started a recommended examination of whether its transshipment verification and regulation procedures are adequate or need improvement. Similarly, a working group continues development of a catch documentation scheme (CDS), despite a recommendation in the 2012 review to start developing a CDS for species of greater concern.

Conclusion

ICCAT, IATTC, and WCPFC have all made progress in some areas of fisheries management, but still need to do more. Independent performance reviews provide key insights into ways that governments can fulfil the terms of UNFSA and their obligations to the RFMOs. Formal responses to the recommendations, including annual audits on progress toward implementation, should be codified into the normal business of the RFMOs. 

To encourage this, Pew urges parties to UNFSA to urgently take performance review recommendations into account when determining management measures. They can be used as a basis for moving toward sustainability. To successfully follow those recommendations, Parties should support more complete compliance mechanisms at every RFMO that include consequences for non-compliance, a consistent recommendation of performance review panels around the world. 

Fishing nations should also support a shift from year-to-year management of individual fish stocks to holistic harvest strategies, where science-based management actions are automatically triggered based on stock status. Should the UNFSA Parties succeed in these efforts, the RFMOs can expect their next independent performance reviews to highlight more areas where past recommendations have been met.

Endnotes

See original article.

Additional FAD Management Measures Needed in International Fisheries

Categories News, NewsPosted on

No tuna regional fisheries management organization has sufficient best practices in place to limit ecological impact

Republished from The Pew Charitable Trusts, July 17 2018

Overview

Tuna fishermen around the world use fish aggregating devices (FADs)—man-made floating objects that many species gather beneath—to increase their catch. However, these devices also lead to large amounts of bycatch and often become marine debris, in large part because the international organizations that regulate these fisheries have limited FAD management measures in place.

FAD use has increased significantly in recent decades, boosted by technologies that also have made FADs more effective. Each of the tropical tuna regional fishery management organizations (tRFMOs)—the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC), the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC), and the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC)—have begun to grapple with how best to manage FAD use, but current measures remain inadequate.

The Pew Charitable Trusts reviewed the FAD management measures in place across these organizations and found widely divergent approaches. None of the tRFMOs has yet put a comprehensive plan in place.

These management organizations should take advantage of tested and available strategies and best practices, depending on their individual needs and constituencies. This brief lays out the basic concepts in four categories of issues that should be addressed immediately—information sharing, tuna management, bycatch mitigation, and debris reduction. It also includes a comparison of what each tRFMO now has in place.

Although all of these policies may not be needed for every fishery, each tRFMO should immediately adopt a FAD management approach that mitigates the impact of these devices and ensures their sustainable use.

A worsening problem

The lack of tRFMO regulation has allowed FAD use to expand rapidly since the 1990s. Although precise numbers are unknown, a 2015 Pew study estimated that as many as 121,000 FADs may be deployed annually.1

Fishermen deploy FADs at sea because tuna gather beneath them. A typical design includes a raft with netting that hangs as deep as 100 meters below the surface. A satellite-linked buoy relays the location to a fishing vessel. More sophisticated buoys include echo-sounders that can tell fishermen the amount of tuna under the FAD and, in some cases, the species.

FAD materials sit on the deck of a purse seine vessel in Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia. Source: The Pew Charitable Trusts

These drifting devices have boosted the efficiency of purse seine vessels that use huge nets to encircle and catch large numbers of skipjack tuna. That has increased the worldwide supply of this important source of protein and supported many livelihoods, but it has also taken a toll on other tuna populations and marine species. For example, small and juvenile bigeye and yellowfin tuna also gather around FADs. Although fishing vessels may not be seeking these fish, FAD use can lead to unsustainable catches of one or both of those species—depending on where the fishing is occurring—if not properly managed. That reduces their populations and their productivity. This has happened across the globe with bigeye in the Atlantic Ocean and yellowfin in the Indian Ocean, for example, where both are experiencing overfishing and are overfished.

A purse seine vessel with net is docked in Majuro, Marshall Islands. Source: The Pew Charitable Trusts

Tuna caught and frozen by a purse seine vessel is transshipped to a carrier vessel that will take it to be processed.
Source: The Pew Charitable Trusts

In the Pacific, bigeye’s status also remains a concern. In the eastern Pacific, this species is experiencing overfishing, while in the ocean’s western waters, the stock is thought to be healthy now although high numbers of juvenile fish are being caught.

FADs also cause the deaths of threatened or protected species such as sharks and turtles, which can get entangled in the webbing or are caught incidentally in the purse seine nets. And FADs pollute and damage habitats when this gear is lost or abandoned at sea. Legal ownership is often unclear, in part because vessels fish on any FAD they find, whether they deployed it or encountered it by chance. As a result, fishermen often treat FADs as disposable, so they wash up on beaches and coral reefs and contribute to plastic pollution.

Strategies available to reduce FADs’ adverse impacts

The tRFMOs have made slow progress in regulating these devices, but a number of strategies are available that they have yet to widely implement that can better manage the range of FAD impacts.

The selected strategies outlined here are some of the best practices identified in 2017 by experts at an independent Global FAD Science Symposium and mirror some of the conclusions from the first Joint tRFMO FAD Working Group meeting, which brought together representatives from three of the four tropical tuna RFMOs to identify priorities and actions to manage FADs.2

Pew selected the strategies for inclusion in this brief from a longer list developed at those meetings based on three criteria: They can be applied in the tRFMO context, they are feasible as regulatory policies, and they do not require development of new technologies to be put in place in the near term. These strategies do not represent an exhaustive list but are offered as a starting point for discussion.

They are presented in four categories of issues that should be addressed immediately: information sharing, tuna management, bycatch mitigation, and debris reduction. The list does not include some worthy strategies, such as requiring the use of biodegradable materials as much as possible in building FADs, that require further technological development, testing, or clarification of terms to be fully realized.

Improvements to FAD management should be made in tandem with other actions required to ensure fisheries are sustainable, regardless of the gear used. For example, fishing pressure on a stock from all gears must remain within the scientifically advised levels, and effective compliance systems must be fully implemented.

The smaller skiff attached to the back of this purse seine vessel in Ecuador helps set the net during fishing operations.
Source: The Pew Charitable Trusts

To improve information collection, tRFMOs could:

  • Require industry to share electronic position data from buoys with scientists and/or fishery authorities (i.e., FAD tracking). Unique physical identifiers could also be required on the raft. These steps would allow tRFMOs to improve scientific understanding about the use and impact of FADs, monitor compliance with existing rules, increase accountability for FAD impacts, and develop improved measures.

To improve tuna management, tRFMOs could:

  • Cap the amount of FAD fishing and provide incentives to shift fishing effort to free schools to reduce the unsustainable catch of juvenile bigeye and yellowfin tunas. Steps could include setting annual science-based limits on the number of FAD sets or catch limits for bigeye and yellowfin tunas in the purse seine fishery along with appropriate management of other gears catching the same stocks. Economic incentives may complement a strategy to encourage greater effort on free school fishing. Today, some tRFMOs institute prohibitions on FAD use in certain waters or at certain times, which is often ineffective because fishing can increase in other areas or during periods when FAD fishing is allowed. Greater free school fishing also would reduce the impact  on non-target species such as sharks and turtles often caught around FADs.
  • Develop and implement science-based FAD deployment limits to better manage the proliferation in the number of FADs and harm to ecosystem dynamics. Restrictions could be for particular waters or vessels. Although the four tRFMOs have capped the number of FAD buoys that can be monitored by an individual vessel at any one time, these limits do not appear to be restrictive enough to affect the behaviors of fishing fleets as a whole. Limits on deployments also would help reduce marine debris associated with unrecovered FADs.;

To mitigate bycatch, tRFMOs could:

  • Require use of non-entangling FADs to avoid killing sharks and turtles that get caught in the webbing material of the rafts. Experience with fleets deploying non-entangling FADs demonstrates that they do not reduce the catch of targeted tunas, but can effectively curtail entanglement of sharks and turtles.
  • Require the release of sharks and turtles from purse seine nets before hauling them in to minimize mortality.
  • Require use of published safe-release techniques for sharks brought on deck and mandate revival techniques for turtles to improve the survivability of the animals.
  • Require non-target bony fish to be kept and landed to avoid waste of bycatch species that may have value in local markets.

To reduce debris, tRFMOs could:

  • Develop and implement science-based FAD deployment limits to minimize the contribution to marine debris and mitigate the probability that lost or abandoned FADs wash up on coastlines or coral reefs. Most deployed FADs are never fished upon.
  • Require FADs to be recovered by removing them from the water, such as via partnerships with coastal authorities/communities, and the use of systems that can help intercept FADs before they beach. They also should establish cleanup funds to reimburse the costs of removing FADs that do end up on shore.

Comparing measures in place in the RFMOs that manage tropical tunas

The following assessment compares published FAD-related regulations at each tuna RFMO against the strategies laid out in this brief. It gives tRFMOs the benefit of the doubt by assuming 100 percent compliance by members with these rules. The assessment, however, does not reflect situations in which a fleet or States have adopted FAD policies outside of tRFMO management measures. To meet the criteria, a strategy must be mandatory; voluntary measures are assessed as not meeting the criteria.

Source: The Pew Charitable Trusts

Conclusion

Pew’s analysis shows that none of the four RFMOs that manage tropical tunas currently takes a comprehensive approach to managing FAD use. Progress has been made on reducing the impact on sea turtles and requiring the use of non-entangling designs. Still, the WCPFC, the tRFMO area where the greatest number of annual FAD deployments probably occurs, does not have a measure in place requiring non-entangling designs to be used for this gear.

Significant ecological effects remain to be addressed, particularly regarding the incidental and unsustainable catch of bigeye and yellowfin, and recovery of lost and abandoned FADs. Information on FADs should be improved through the sharing of satellite buoy data and marking of rafts. Additionally, where the tRFMOs have adopted strategies to mitigate FAD impacts, those strategies should be reviewed periodically to assess what works and identify opportunities for improvement. tRFMOs should share lessons learned through efforts such as the Joint Tuna RFMO FAD Working Group.

Proven and promising strategies have been identified to manage FADs. The four tropical tuna RFMOs should now agree to take steps that allow for FAD use within safe biological parameters and to adopt measures appropriate to their fisheries. Policymakers can safeguard the health of the marine environment; they just need the will to implement these solutions.

Endnotes

  1. Because vessels are not required to report the number of FADs they deploy to international authorities, the precise number of deployments is not known. A Pew report estimated a range of 81,000 to 121,000 FADs were deployed in 2013. See Dave Gershman, Amanda Nickson, and Megan O’Toole, “Estimating the Use of FADs Around the World: An Updated Analysis of Fish Aggregating Devices Deployed in the Ocean” (2015), The Pew Charitable Trusts.
  2. For more information on the agreed points of the Global FAD Science Symposium, see the paper “What Does Well-Managed FAD Use Look Like Within a Tropical Purse Seine Fishery?”, which was one of five produced by the symposium. The meeting chair’s report of the first Joint Tuna RFMO FAD Working Group meeting can be found at http://iccat.int/Documents/Meetings/Docs/2017_JFADS_REP_ENG.pdf.