Decisions Needed about Atlantic Tuna Stocks, Says the Seafood Market

The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) meets in Cairo, Egypt, next week. Expectations are that the conservation of key Atlantic tuna stocks and the concerns of the seafood market will be addressed.

The 1990s and 2000s saw the establishment of five tuna Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (RFMOs) around the world. ICCAT is one of them. These organisations comprise between 21 and 50 member countries each. They all have a history of catching tuna and have tuna living in their waters.

In 2021 ICCAT adopted interim conservation measures, which were rolled over to 2022. Now a year later, the Global Tuna Alliance is pushing for ICCAT to provide the market with the long-term confidence it needs to commit to sourcing from the Atlantic. It wants to see an agreement reached on a multi-annual plan to rebuild Atlantic bigeye tuna stocks within 15 years. In addition, it wants yellowfin tuna stocks, recently declared no longer overfished, to be maintained within the total allowable catch (TAC).