Author——————————-
Shana Miller
Project Director, International Fisheries Conservation – The Ocean Foundation
We’re proud to announce the launch of a bold new partnership to promote harvest strategy development and implementation for international tuna fisheries. The Ocean Foundation just signed a 4-year agreement with the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to produce a series of educational and outreach materials on harvest strategies. All of those materials will be housed right here on www.harveststrategies.org!
Products will include both print and digital materials, ranging from factsheets to animations, and both technical and non-technical online interactives. These outputs arepart of the considerable expansion to the role of – and resources available on – our website, which we announced in November. We’ll even develop a free, online course on harvest strategies and MSE that can be taken by fisheries managers and scientists for certification through FAO’s eLearning Academy. A quarterly webinar series will round out the offerings, allowing us to dig into timely issues with panels of expert speakers.
We’ve assembled a top-notch advisory board to ensure the project is as constructive and impactful as possible. All are leaders in the field and bring diverse expertise to our team. The seven advisors represent 5 continents and have experience at all 5 tuna RFMOs. We have government diplomats and managers, RFMO Secretariat staff, scientists, and representatives of the fishing industry and environmental organizations. We are incredibly grateful that they have committed to sharing their time and knowledge with the project.
Our harvest strategies project is but one of many funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) through FAO’s Common Oceans Tuna project. The overarching, US$15 million initiative aims to ensure that tunas are fished sustainably by 2027. To achieve this lofty goal, the project is mobilizing a global partnership in support of responsible tuna fisheries management and the conservation of biodiversity in ocean areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ, more commonly known as the high seas). Harvest strategies are a major part of that, alongside other new projects that will expand the use of the ecosystem approach to fisheries management (EAFM), bycatch mitigation strategies, electronic monitoring, and catch document systems (CDS). Other efforts will work to improve compliance processes and shark management at the tuna RFMOs and to reduce marine debris stemming from fishing gear. Importantly, the overall project also seeks to improve gender equity in fisheries. These projects will build on the successful, US$50 million first phase of the program, which began in 2014.
There are 29 tuna and swordfish stocks globally. Only seven of them have harvest strategies in place, with only four of those fully implemented. There are an additional 16 stocks with harvest strategies in development. Our goal through this project is to move more of those 29 stocks into the fully implemented column between now and our December 2026 end date. Stay tuned here to track our progress!
Author——————————-
David Gershman
Officer, International Fisheries
✉️
Rebuilding Pacific saury, an important food source in several nations that is overfished and experiencing overfishing, is a priority for the North Pacific Fisheries Commission (NPFC). Catches in 2021 and 2022 declined to historic lows and the biomass of the stock of recent years is at historically low levels. This decline is all the more concerning because, as a shorter-lived species, Pacific saury also plays a key role in the ecosystem as a source of prey for other marine life. During its annual meeting last week, it was evident that a full harvest strategy, also called a management procedure, will be essential for NPFC to achieve that goal.
I participated as an observer at the NPFC’s annual Commission meeting that concluded March 24, in Sapporo, Japan, where Pacific saury was one of the most prominent matters on the agenda. Members put forward two proposals to reduce the total allowable catch (TAC) for Pacific saury. Although the NPFC has begun work to develop an interim harvest control rule (HCR) that would be followed by a full management procedure, the poor condition of the stock warranted immediate action.
One proposal would have reduced the TAC to 101,000 metric tons within the Convention Area (with an additional 69,000 mt for the rest of the stock’s range), which is the level that would be recommended by an HCR like many used around the world that adjusts fishing intensity according to the level of a stock’s biomass. But another member said that amount would negatively impact the operational stability of the Pacific saury fishery and instead proposed a TAC of 166,000 mt (with 39,000 mt for the rest of the stock’s range), which that proponent said was in line with the fishing mortality at the maximum sustainable yield (MSY) level.
With little time to negotiate, a compromise was reached, setting the TAC in the Convention Area at 150,000 mt (with 100,000 mt for the rest of the stock’s range) and adding several new provisions that aim to reduce fishing effort but could complicate any analysis of the predicted effect of the overall measure.
The experience once again shows why clarity in scientific advice is so important in fisheries management. Proponents of both proposals claimed theirs met the scientific advice, although fishing at the MSY level is unlikely to make much of a dent in rebuilding Pacific saury.
It also shows why a fully simulation tested management procedure is so important. By agreeing to objectives in advance, managers, scientists and stakeholders build consensus on where they want the fishery to go and how to get there, without last minute negotiating around the meeting table where suboptimal bargains often are made.
The good news is the NPFC reviewed the work to date to develop the interim HCR. And the Commission reaffirmed its goal to have one presented and used to set the TAC at the Commission’s 8th annual meeting, which is scheduled for April 2024. Once the interim HCR is in place, focus can shift to using Management Strategy Evaluation to develop a fully specified management procedure.
I hope NPFC members came away from the experience of this year noting the difficulty of negotiating effective catch limits during the intense pressure that comes with a meeting agenda packed full of crucial issues. That experience should be another reason to fully embrace the future of fisheries management. NPFC members should redouble their efforts to develop the interim HCR and then management procedure that would benefit the ecosystem and generate productive and stable catches for industry.
Author——————————-
Shana Miller
Project Director, International Fisheries Conservation – The Ocean Foundation
The Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) is one of the global leaders in transitioning to the harvest strategy approach. IOTC adopted a harvest control rule for skipjack tuna in 2016 and a management procedure (MP) for bigeye tuna in 2022. Development is underway for IOTC’s other key commercial stocks – yellowfin, albacore and swordfish, with adoption expected for each within the next couple of years. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that IOTC is struggling to implement its active harvest strategies. The skipjack catch limit set by the agreed harvest control rule (HCR) has been exceeded in every year since adoption, by 30%, 16%, 18% and 27% in 2018-2021, respectively. This is despite the fact that prior to the harvest strategy (HS) being adopted, catches had only been higher than the HCR-derived limit twice since 1950. In other words, IOTC adopted the HS, and then members increased catch even more than the HS would allow. It was not a case of needing to reduce catch to comply with the limit.
Unfortunately, bigeye tuna does need to reduce catch under the MP, and the same implementation concern applies. Following last year’s adoption, the MP-based catch limit is scheduled to be implemented for the first time next year. Because bigeye is both overfished and experiencing continued overfishing, the first-ever catch limit for the stock will require a reduction in catch from recent averages of around 90,000 t annually to the MP-derived annual limit of 80,583 t for 2024 and 2025. This will be the first ever catch limit for the stock, despite it being identified as subject to overfishing – and potentially overfished – several years ago in 2019.
IOTC has successfully established the size of the catch pie through harvest strategy adoption, but divvying up the pieces of said pie has proven incredibly challenging. IOTC has been negotiating allocation arrangements among members since 2011. The Technical Committee on Allocation Criteria (TCAC) is scheduled to meet for the 12th time later this year, with sadly little to show for its more than a decade of work, given how contentious allocation debates can be. Historical and/or recent catch, development status, coastal proximity, financial and/or ecosystem contributions…these and many more can be factors in allocation negotiations. Even with its independent legal facilitator, IOTC seems unlikely to resolve its allocation arrangements in the near future.
The question then becomes how do members comply with the catch limits for skipjack and bigeye in the absence of an allocation agreement? One option would be to require that any catch exceeding the limit be paid back in the following year by proportional decreases to each IOTC member’s catches from that year. In so doing, recent catches would become an interim share for each member. If those limits were again exceeded, then only the violating members would be responsible for paying back those catches in the following year. None of these temporary shares should be considered as precedent in the overarching allocation discussions. Another option would be to carefully monitor catches in-season and to close the fishery, prohibiting all landings by any IOTC member, once the overall catch limit is reached. But this approach would potentially be less desirable as it could create a “race to fish”.
These or any of a range of other approaches will be necessary to ensure implementation and success of harvest strategies in the Indian Ocean as a bridge until more permanent allocation keys can be agreed. And IOTC is not alone in this problem, as allocation remains a systemic challenge throughout RFMOs worldwide. But if the skipjack limit continues to be overrun, the stock could decline, requiring steeper cuts in the future. Similarly, if the new bigeye limit is ignored, the concerning current status of the stock could become dire and attract unwanted attention from seafood markets, as has been the case for the severely overfished yellowfin tuna. As Pew’s Glen Holmes and I wrote in a paper published last year in Marine Policy, adoption of harvest strategies can free up time to negotiate allocation, and the predictability of future catches under an HS can help to unblock allocation disputes. But until that happens, another backstop must be put in place. This should be a priority at IOTC’s annual meeting coming up in May.
Author——————————-
Shana Miller
Project Director, International Fisheries Conservation – The Ocean Foundation
HarvestStrategies.org is proud to release a new video featuring eight prominent players from the world’s largest tuna fishery in the western and central Pacific Ocean (WCPO). In the video, narrated by Marino-O-Te-Au Wichman (SPC), Marcelo Hidalgo (FIA-PNG), Graham Pilling (SPC), Neomai Ravitu (Ministry of Fisheries, Fiji), Brett Haywood (PITIA), Francisco Blaha, Feleti Teo (WCPFC) and Manu Tupou-Roosen (FFA) share their visions for how harvest strategies can contribute to an abundant and sustainable future for the region’s fisheries. This message is clear and consistent across the diverse voices in this video that represent governments, science and the fishing industry from all corners of the Pacific.
The WCPO accounts for roughly two-thirds of the global tuna catch, creating an incredibly valuable resource to the region’s economy (worth over $26.2 billion in 2018!), food security and ecosystem. Earlier this month, the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) adopted its first-ever harvest strategy for skipjack tuna. WCPFC is now well positioned to expand on this success by adopting and fully implementing additional harvest strategies for its other important stocks.
The video was produced in partnership with The Ocean Foundation’s International Fisheries Conservation project and The Pacific Community (SPC) with support from the Common Oceans Tuna Project, which is funded by the Global Environment Facility and implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). An abbreviated trailer version of the video is also available.
Author——————————-
David Gershman
Officer, International Fisheries
✉️
Fishery managers in the western and central Pacific adopted a management procedure (MP) for skipjack tuna – the largest tuna fishery in the world – on the final day of their annual meeting in Da Nang, Vietnam.
Eight years after committing to develop management procedures, also called harvest strategies, for its key tuna species, the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) took this critical step forward to modernize management of the skipjack fishery at its meeting that ended Dec. 3.
This is not only the first management strategy evaluation (MSE)-tested management procedure for a tuna species adopted in the WCPFC, it is the first across the Pacific.
However, more work remains to be done. Importantly, the management procedure lacks a direct link to setting effort and catch in the skipjack fishery. While the MP will calculate catch and effort levels based on model estimates of population size, there is no mandate to apply them on the water. Without this link, some of the chief benefits of a management procedure will go unrealized, including catch level predictability and transparency. Further, lengthy, political negotiations may still occur since the MP-based catch levels will be but one option on the table.
Instead of the MP-based catch and effort levels being directly implemented, the Scientific Committee will review the output of the management procedure and provide advice to the Commission on the application of the management procedure to the implementation of the tropical tuna measure, which will continue to be periodically renegotiated.
Still, this is a significant accomplishment for the WCPFC, coming after years of hard work by the scientists and members of the Commission, and builds momentum for developing fully-tested management procedures for its other tuna stocks. It will be critical for WCPFC to fill in the missing piece of its management procedure for skipjack and tie it to setting effort and catch in the fishery when it next renegotiates the tropical tuna measure in 2023.
Author——————————-
Shana Miller
Project Director, International Fisheries Conservation – The Ocean Foundation
The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) has provided the leading set of sustainability standards for the seafood industry for more than 20 years. At the end of October, it officially rolled out the latest version – Fisheries Standard, version 3.0. Four years in the making, the MSC claims that v3.0 “contains significant improvements to help address some of the most difficult issues facing the oceans, including better protections for marine biodiversity and incentivising stronger ocean governance.” But unfortunately, it’s not all as rosy as the MSC may want us to believe.
First on its list of improvements are the changes to its harvest strategies requirements for international fisheries. The Standard now has an entirely new section for fisheries managed by the regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) – Section SE. Some of the new provisions will indeed hold fisheries to a higher bar. For one, Section SE can only be used, “if there is evidence that the RFMO is committed to the development of a harvest strategy that includes a management procedure (MP) tested within a management strategy evaluation (MSE) framework.” This effectively prevents any fisheries from entering MSC assessment until there’s been a formal commitment by the RFMO to do an MSE.
The second major improvement in the new standard is that certified fisheries will need to both adopt and fully implement a harvest strategy. Unlike in the previous standard, Version 3.0 requires certified fisheries to eventually achieve a perfect score of SG100 for the harvest strategy elements. This will avoid situations like skipjack in the Indian Ocean, which has kept its certification despite the fact that catches have exceeded the limit by up to 30% in every year since a harvest control rule (HCR) was adopted in 2016.
So, what’s the problem?
Unfortunately, the new standard falls short in several areas. Section SE doubles the time allowed for closing harvest strategy-related conditions from 5 years to 10 years. Currently certified fisheries will have the option to be reevaluated using Section SE and will then be given an additional 5 years to close their conditions. This option is even available to fisheries that have already been granted extensions on their harvest strategy conditions in the past. For example, in 2011, the MSC certified its first skipjack fishery in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean (WCPO). Under v3.0, they will be given until at least 2028 to secure a successful harvest strategy – meaning they will remain certified despite not having a functioning harvest strategy for almost 20 years!
Last year, the MSC warned that 22 WCPO tuna fisheries were at risk of losing their certifications. This year, they gave them a reprieve in v3.0. Granted, if a fishery chooses to move to Section SE to have more time on harvest strategies, they will eventually – but not immediately – need to comply with the other elements of v3.0, including tighter restrictions on ghost fishing from lost fish aggregating devices (FADs), monitoring and surveillance, and shark finning.
Currently certified fisheries have until the May 2023 deadline to decide whether to switch to Section SE or stay with the current harvest strategy requirements found in v2.01, but it’s all or nothing by stock. If the majority of fisheries targeting a stock agree to switch, they all have to switch.
For over a decade, the MSC’s harvest strategy and harvest control rule requirements have accounted for half of the scoring on Principle 1 – Sustainable fish stocks, making the MSC a major driver for harvest strategy development. The question is now whether v3.0 will help to ensure more robust and successfully implemented harvest strategies, as the MSC asserts, or whether it will instead primarily be a driver for further delays. With several harvest strategy condition deadlines looming for key tuna stocks, that answer will soon be clear.
Author——————————-
Shana Miller
Project Director, International Fisheries Conservation – The Ocean Foundation
Breaking News: HarvestStrategies.org Applauds ICCAT For Adoption of Management Procedure for Atlantic Bluefin Tuna
Gathered today in Vale do Lobo, Portugal, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) adopted a comprehensive management procedure (MP) for Atlantic bluefin tuna, its most iconic species.
A decade ago, there were calls to close the fisheries in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea in a desperate attempt to rebuild this billion-dollar fish from collapse. Thanks to a concerted effort by fishery managers, scientists, industry and environmental groups, the eastern population has fully recovered. Today’s adoption of a science-based management procedure for Atlantic bluefin tuna will not only secure that eastern recovery but will also ensure that the western population reaches target levels.
The MP will shift bluefin management towards proactive, science-based rules, designed to secure a long-term sustainable fishery while preventing short-term economics from driving risky decision-making that put the species in crisis in the first place. Thanks to thorough testing in what may be the most comprehensive and robust management strategy evaluation (MSE) to date, the MP will help ensure successful management of this species despite uncertainty in the fishery and environmental factors, including climate change.
HarvestStrategies.org is proud of the role we have played in today’s success, including through use of our many communications materials available in multiple languages. Shana Miller, director of The Ocean Foundation’s International Fisheries Conservation project remarked, “With today’s adoption, Atlantic bluefin tuna join the ranks of global best practice for fisheries management. The management procedure will lead to stable and predictable fisheries and markets for decades into the future, taking bluefin off the boycott list and putting it back on the menu as a sustainable choice for seafood lovers.”
Mona Samari, consultant and HarvestStrategies.org partner, issued this statement: “What better day than on World Fisheries day for ICCAT members to reach a consensus on the adoption of the harvest strategy approach for Atlantic bluefin tuna. This historic move towards the future of fisheries management would not have been possible without the strong support from North African ICCAT members, notably Tunisia, the royal kingdom of Morocco, Libya and Egypt, who all played a vital role in assuring the process reached the finish line.”
“The year 2022 has been a pivotal one for oceans management: Fishing nations are slowly moving towards revolutionizing the way they collectively approach fisheries management, rooted in the restoration of natural resources based on the latest science and not just short-term gains. The adoption of a harvest strategy for Atlantic bluefin contributes towards the goals of the UN Decade of Ocean Science, by placing science at the heart of natural resource management, whilst removing short-term politically motivated decision-making on annual quota setting.”
In other good news for harvest strategy development, thanks to leadership from Brazil, ICCAT also adopted management objectives for western Atlantic skipjack tuna. The stock is now poised to adopt a management procedure as soon as next year, pending completion and approval of its MSE.
For more information, contact Shana Miller at smiller@oceanfdn.org or Mona Samari at monasamari@outlook.com.