In the late 1990s, swordfish had been so overfished in the North Atlantic Ocean that its population faced the possibility of collapse. The dire situation sparked boycotts and conservation campaigns in honor of the highly migratory species, a predator that can move at nearly the speed of a cheetah and slash at prey with the long, flat bill that gives it its name. Managers set a quota and a minimum catch size to protect juveniles, the stock began to recover and it was declared rebuilt in 2013. And now, with a landmark move made Nov. 18, that recovery appears secure.
The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), which manages a wide range of fish stocks across the entire Atlantic Ocean and adjacent seas, adopted a “harvest strategy” for swordfish (Xiphias gladius) during its annual meeting, held in Cyprus Nov. 11-18.
Government representatives and conservationists hailed the move, which sets up largely automatic science-based fisheries management decisions for the long term. The harvest strategy, which is designed to be resilient to climate change effects, had been in the works for years, but its adoption wasn’t guaranteed until the final gavel fell, with all parties in consensus.
“To get this across the finish line was a big success,” Esther Wozniak, an international fisheries manager at the Philadelphia-based think tank Pew Charitable Trusts, told Mongabay. Pew had long advocated for the development of a swordfish harvest strategy.
Shana Miller, a project director at the Washington, D.C.-based Ocean Foundation who also worked on the harvest strategy, told Mongabay that its adoption was a “momentous step forward for ICCAT” and would “lock in sustainability” for the highly sought-after species.
The adoption of the swordfish harvest strategy was a high point of the weeklong meeting that conservationists said brought mixed results. ICCAT parties showed a strong commitment to developing harvest strategies for a number of other species, came to an agreement on managing tropical tuna after years of wrangling and passed measures to fight illegal fishing and improve the safety of observers who document catches on fishing vessels. However, the tuna agreement came with certain concessions to industry that could contribute to overfishing. Experts also said the meeting went badly for shark conservation efforts, notably because a measure to stop shark finning was not adopted.
No crossing of swords
ICCAT is the world’s largest regional fisheries management organization (RFMO), with 53 member parties, including the European Union, and four cooperating nations. While some RFMOs, multilateral bodies that generally manage fish stocks in international waters, have been criticized for perceived governance and management failures, observers have praised aspects of ICCAT’s work in recent years.
ICCAT’s push to develop harvest strategies is one reason why. Harvest strategies have emerged in the last decade as a best practice in fisheries management. In simple form, they predetermine decisions about how much catch to allow based on incoming fishery data: If the data show high probability a stock is not overfished and will remain so, catches can remain stable or rise; if that probability is low, catches decrease by a pre-agreed amount. This can help reduce the role of politics and commercial pressures in setting catches, experts say.
ICCAT’s swordfish harvest strategy is among the first of its kind to account for climate change.
Canada led the way in developing it, with backing from Morocco, the European Union and the United States. A group of fishing industry companies and restaurateurs from the U.S. and beyond had advocated for the swordfish strategy. ICCAT failed to pass the measure last year for technical reasons, which Wozniak of Pew said had been “heartbreaking.” This year, she was relieved when the gavel dropped and it was finalized, she said.
Kelly Kryc, the deputy assistant secretary for international fisheries at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and head of the U.S. delegation in Cyprus, told Mongabay that ICCAT’s move on swordfish “demonstrates the power of consensus-building multilateral negotiations.”
Skipping forward
Swordfish is the third species for which ICCAT has adopted a harvest strategy, following Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) in 2022 and North Atlantic albacore (T. alalunga) in 2021. The Cyprus meeting also brought progress on several more species.
The furthest along is the harvest strategy for western Atlantic skipjack (Katsuwonus pelamis), a recommendation for which was adopted at the meeting. Brazil spearheaded the effort, as the country responsible for most of the skipjack catch. Luis Gustavo Cardoso, a national secretary at Brazil’s fisheries ministry and head of the country’s delegation to ICCAT, told Mongabay in an email that adopting the recommendation was a “significant milestone.” He said the species was among the top three landed in Brazil, mostly via “highly selective pole-and-line” methods. The strategy is on course to be adopted by ICCAT next year.
The most notable and complicated harvest strategy under consideration is for three tuna species: bigeye (T. obesus), yellowfin (T. albacares) and eastern Atlantic skipjack. It would be the first multispecies harvest strategy adopted by an RFMO. Other harvest strategies in the pipeline at ICCAT are for South Atlantic albacore and blue shark (Prionace glauca).
The parties also passed several measures to improve fishing vessels’ compliance with the rules and fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. These dealt with electronic monitoring of catches, for which a three-year work plan was adopted, and transshipment, for which the rules were tightened on the carrier vessels that can receive transfers from fishing vessels.
The parties also adopted a measure requiring stricter reporting on observer safety aboard vessels. The initiative, spearheaded by the U.S. delegation, followed reports of observer disappearances in recent years off of West Africa, including an incident in Ghanian waters in late 2023.
Gonçalo Carvalho, an oceans campaigner at Sciaena, a Portugal-based marine conservation NGO, told Mongabay that decisions in Cyprus reinforced ICCAT’s commitment to fighting IUU fishing, following other strong measures in recent years.
Praise for tuna deal sandwiched with criticism
One of the most significant outputs from the Cyprus meeting was an agreement on tropical tuna management and quota allocation for the next three years, after several years of stalemate in which old rules were carried over. The measure, the wording of which was still being argued over at the final plenary in Cyprus, dealt with the same three species as the proposed multispecies harvest strategy but was more contentious because it entailed concrete management and allocation decisions for the immediate future.
The agreement set an annual total catch limit of 73,000 metric tons for bigeye tuna, a generous 18% increase, with the European Union and Japan getting the largest shares of the quota. Cardoso of Brazil, which got the fourth-largest share, said the parties reached a compromise on bigeye allocation.
“Even though the more prominent players remain in developed countries, the most significant increases compared to the previous allocation table were granted to developing coastal countries, reflecting a commitment to equity and fairness,” he said.
NGO observers offered mixed reviews of the tropical tunas agreement, which didn’t address the overexploitation of yellowfin tuna that’s taken place for more than a decade. The agreement also did nothing to strengthen compliance on longliner vessels, which can drop thousands of baited hooks at a time. Some NGOs and parties had called for observers to be required on more of the vessels, but the agreement left the required coverage at 10% of a fleet’s vessels.
The agreement loosened restrictions on fish aggregating devices (FADs), reducing the ocean-wide moratorium on FAD use from 72 days per year under the current rules to 45 days starting in 2025; the closure will run from mid-March to late April. FADs are floating structures deployed to attract tuna; their use can lead to overfishing of juveniles. They are used by purse seining vessels largely from the European Union, which was among the parties that pushed for the change. A spokesperson for the European Commission who declined to be named, per commission policy, told Mongabay in a statement that ICCAT reduced the closure period because there was a “lack of scientific underpinning” for the 72-day closure. NGOs such as Sciaena had pushed for stricter rules regarding registration of FADs, which are often lost or abandoned at sea and contribute to marine pollution, and the number that each vessel can carry, but they weren’t adopted.
Miller of the Ocean Foundation called the tuna agreement “a win for consensus but not necessarily a win for conservation.” She said the “less restrictive management system” will “need to be monitored closely.”
Shark measure tanked
Sharks are top predators that serve an essential role in the marine ecosystem. But they’ve been subject to intensive overfishing globally, prompting urgent calls for change from conservationists. In Cyprus, ICCAT parties made their strongest-ever push to effectively ban shark finning in the Atlantic, though it was ultimately unsuccessful. Shark finning entails cutting off a shark’s fins and dumping the live animal back in the ocean; the fins are generally used in shark fin soup, a delicacy in parts of Asia.
For the 16th year in a row, a proposal was put forward at ICCAT to require that all sharks be landed with their fins naturally attached. This year, the measure, brought by the U.S., Brazil and Belize, had 42 co-sponsors — the most ever — including, for the first time, South Korea. However, Japan moved to block the measure, and China, which initially seemed receptive to it, ultimately took Japan’s side, according to Iris Ziegler, head of fisheries policy at Deutsche Stiftung Meeresstiftung, a German NGO.
Belize then made the highly unusual move of calling for a vote on the matter. ICCAT parties make nearly all decisions by consensus; voting is extraordinarily rare, with the last vote having taken place many years ago. In the end, Japan successfully pushed to prevent the vote.
Shark League for the Atlantic and Mediterranean, a coalition of advocacy groups including the Ocean Foundation, called the outcome a “dramatic defeat” in a statement.
Shingo Ota, special adviser to Japan’s minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries and head of the country’s delegation, declined Mongabay’s request to comment, citing distrust in journalists. China’s head of delegation didn’t respond to a request for comment from Mongabay.
Ziegler said it was “a terrible year for sharks at ICCAT” not only because of the failed shark fin measure but also because of inaction on species including the shortfin mako (Isurus oxyrinchus), an endangered apex predator that she described as the “little brother of the great white.” Shortfin mako retention is strictly regulated by ICCAT in theory, but mortality rates continue at a dangerous level, she said.
Shortfin makos are often caught by vessels targeting blue sharks, which Ziegler said are also in need of more immediate protection by ICCAT. The harvest strategy proposal for blue sharks offers at least a “light at the end of the tunnel,” she said. It would, if adopted, be the first harvest strategy for a shark species adopted at any RFMO.
The parties in Cyprus did formally adopt bans on the retention of whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) and mobulid rays (family Mobulidae) that they negotiated last year, while setting forth best practices for safe handling and release when these marine animals are accidentally caught.
This article by Edward Carver was first published by Mongabay.com on 25 November 2024. Lead Image: A swordfish captured in an offshore longline in Brazilian waters. Image courtesy of Andre Seale / Marine Photobank.
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