The Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission has established new minimum standards for electronic monitoring on fishing vessels in a move that sustainability-focused NGOs are celebrating as a win.
The commission met for its annual meeting from 2 to 6 September amid calls for increased vessel monitoring from NGOs including Pew and the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation. Those calls were in part heeded, as the commission adopted new minimum standards for electronic vessel monitoring for the Eastern Pacific high seas fishing fleet.
“[It's] a significant milestone that could help provide much-needed oversight and data collection on vessels,” The Pew Charitable Trusts International Fisheries Manager Esther Wozniak said.
Pew had advocated for electronic monitoring standards to help expand oversight of its fisheries. It said ahead of the meeting that the increased coverage could help fisheries managers address climate change by having more up-to-date information.
ISSF said that the IATTC’s willingness to adopt the standards represent progress in efforts to encourage regional fishery management organizations to take more responsibility for regulating high seas fishing in their jurisdictions.
“By adopting these interim electronic monitoring minimum standards, IATTC is poised to improve monitoring levels – making more data available for scientific work and for assessing the implementation of management measures,” ISSF said. “More importantly, in swiftly and successfully tackling a complex problem, IATTC has demonstrated that the RFMO decision-making process can be both efficient and constructive.”
At its meeting, the commission also took action on updating its compliance process, which ISSF had pushed it to address. Specifically, the commission adopted a ...
