Published:
ICCAT's Last Chance to Prove Capable of Controlling Fisheries
RECIFE, Brazil - (BUSINESS WIRE) - The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas
(ICCAT) will meet in Recife, Brazil, next week to determine the future
of commercially valuable bluefin
tuna, whose populations have plummeted over recent decades. ICCAT is
also expected to take up the issue of controlling shark catches and
finning as agreed upon at the Second Joint Meeting of Tuna Regional
Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs) earlier this year.
ICCAT contracting parties are under close watch by many countries as a
separate proposal was submitted last month to ban international trade of
bluefin tuna under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered
Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
BLUEFIN TUNA
Driven to the verge of collapse by the greed of the international market
and decades of mismanagement and illegal fishing, Atlantic bluefin tuna
populations are nearing the point of commercial extinction. Oceana
calls on ICCAT to immediately close the North Atlantic bluefin tuna
fishery, the only measure that can ensure the survival of this
species.
Oceana also strongly supports the inclusion of this species on Appendix
1 of CITES to stop the main factor driving bluefin tuna to commercial
extinction: international trade.
SHARKS
Sharks are caught by many ICCAT fleets, both as targeted and accidental
catch, and are killed mainly for their valuable fins. Oceana
calls on ICCAT to regulate sharks in its fisheries by
requiring all sharks to be landed with their fins still naturally
attached, prohibiting retention of endangered and particularly
vulnerable or depleted species, and putting catch limits on all other
shark species.
"Sharks have had next to no management on an international level," said
Elizabeth Griffin, marine scientist at Oceana. "ICCAT should protect
sharks before they become the next bluefin tuna story."
ICCAT should put particular emphasis on prohibiting retention of
porbeagle and thresher sharks, both of which are especially depleted and
vulnerable, and in placing catch limits on blue sharks and shortfin
makos, the two most commonly caught sharks in ICCAT fisheries.
Oceana campaigns to protect and restore the world's oceans. Oceana
has more than 300,000 members and e-activists in over 150 countries. For
more information, please visit www.Oceana.org.
Oceana
Elizabeth Griffin, +1 202 271 5645
egriffin@oceana.org
or
María
José Cornax, +34 639 040 296
mcornax@oceana.org
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