TUNA HARDBALL from page 1                 January 2009
L to R Dr, John Graves, U.S. ICCAT Advisory Committee Chair, Mr. Fabio Hazin, new president of ICCAT and head of the Brazil delegation, Attorney Carolyn Parks, NOAA General Counsel. Photo courtesy of Tuna News
Western Atlantic
The 2008 ICCAT agreement will reduce the western quota to 1,900 mt in 2009 from 2,100. Then in 2010 the agreement will reduce the western quota again another 100 tons to 1,800. Through these reduction periods the U.S. quota share will remain at 57 percent. High quota share is a good thing when quotas are steady or increasing. During reductions we will take the biggest quota harvesting hit because our percentage share is higher.

Under this new agreement Mexico gets 95 mt. and refused to include a written clause acknowledging the existing 25 mt cap on catches on the spawning grounds in the Gulf of Mexico. This is the most risky part of the agreement. We are left trusting that Mexico will limit its catches of spawning bluefin to 25 tons and not directly fish on triple the amount of catch of spawning bluefin. A most risky proposition at best and that I continuously drew attention to.

There is also a clause guaranteeing Canada a minimum of 480 mt utilizing Mexico’s expected non-use (underage) of quota and, should this change, then U.S. underharvest in 2010 will be used to make up Canada’s shortfall. In 2009, Canada will get 73 mt. of Mexico’s underages from our prior quota donation of 175 mt.

There is also a provision requiring reopening of the U.S. and western Atlantic quota sharing arrangement in 2010. This can only result in a loss of quota share for the U.S. unless our domestic production increases dramatically soon or temporary “chartering” of foreign vessels to catch our quota begins to protect our share. Chartering protects quota share because the chartering nation gets credit for the catch. It may be a necessary short-term evil in the bluefin arena since the production will be sent to Japan. This plan for 2010 will move Mexico into the “directed fishing allocation table” for the first although they have yet to demonstrate any capability to fish the high seas for non-spawning ground fishing activity in the Atlantic.

The new agreement will also phase down (almost out) the rollover of uncaught quota for all parties. We were able to protect the 50 percent rollover of base quota for 2009-2010 but then it drops from 50 percent to 10 percent. This results from a recommendation of the Independent Peer Review of ICCAT which called for the elimination of rollovers of underages for ICCAT stocks under management.

East Atlantic and Mediterranean
Once again, the EC played its game of waiting until Monday night at 7:41 p.m. to release its final 31-page proposed eastern bluefin plan. They have reduced their quota substantially on paper from 27,500 mt to 22,000 mt for 2009 with further reductions to 19,950 for 2010 and to 18,500 by 2011. Thus, there is not a plan to follow the scientific advice which now stands at 8,500 mt to 15,000 mt per year. This is not unexpected given the clown delegate from Libya who proclaims loudly “We do not respect scientists....ICCAT is dead.”

The East agreement proposes to extend their purse seine closure by two weeks starting June 15 through April 15, again completely inconsistent with the scientific advice to close all of May, June and July. Further, regarding the two weeks of new closures proposed, they are allowing the fleet to add five days of fishing if the wind blows anywhere in the Mediterranean over 7 knots during the open 15 days.

One clause (para 13) states that there will be no carryover of underages allowed and then the same paragraph allows Libya, Morocco and Tunisia to collectively carry forward 674 tons of underage in 2009. More exemptions from the minimum size are included in the plan.

The 31 pages do contain promising restrictions that could lead to an infrastructure to monitor and control the eastern fisheries if developed and implemented. The initial proposed quotas would be as follows: Algeria 1,117.42, China 61.32, Croatia 641.45, Egypt 50.00, EC 12,406.62, Iceland 49.72, Japan 1871.44, Korea 132.26, Libya 946.52, Syria 50.00, Morocco 2,088.26, Norway 49.72, Tunisia 1,735.87, Turkey 683.11, Chinese Taipei 66.30. The new plan could hold some limited hope of progress if one could count on effective implementation.

The U.S. Commissioner, Dr. Rebecca Lent, noted several specific objections to the plan. She noted that the U.S. offered recommendations at the beginning of the meeting more consistent with the scientific advice on quota and closed areas. Finally, she stated that the “U.S. would not block consensus” which allowed the plan to go forward without a vote or roll call vote.

Panel 4: Swordfish and billfish Most important, a straight rollover of the swordfish agreement has been agreed to for one more year. The expectation of parties is that with the new 2009 swordfish stock assessment the allocation key will be reopened at the next meeting. Canada did not waste time trying to squeeze quota concessions from us at this meeting. Maybe the new U.S. chartering Proposed Rule we were able to show them helped here.

On a tea break at the conference. Troy Atkinson, Canadian ICCAT, and right, Kay Williams, Gulf of Mexico Fisheries Management Council member and bluefin tuna expert. Photo courtesy of Tuna News
Thus, we have our full swordfish quota share for 2009 and our underages will be transferred in similar fashion as was done in 2006. As far as I can determine, only Belize caught a portion of the underage by Chartering a Spanish longline vessel in 2006. The product ended up in the Spanish or European markets. It has been announced that in 2010 with the new swordfish stock assessment, the allocation key (i.e. percentage shares of expected quota) will be reopened and the prospects of retaining our full share given the precedence of two major transfers of our underages are bleak.

A recommendation requiring release of any live bigeye thresher shark has been approved by Panel 4. The recommendation mirrors the existing U.S rule on bigeye thresher shark and so should have no impact on our fishery. An agreement to conduct further scientific analysis of porbeagle sharks was also adopted. Due to our efforts, recommendations to require the release of all mako shark and blue sharks in directed and incidental fisheries were dropped.

Panel 1: Bigeye and yellowfin tuna Due to the fairly stable and good condition of both stocks ICCAT agreed to a rollover of the quota on bigeye and the yellowfin measure to not increase fishing effort on the stock.

In addition, ICCAT approved a 2,000 mt transfer of bigeye quota from Japan to China for 2009. Further, the Commission has requested the ICCAT scientists (SCRS) to evaluate before the 2009 meeting:
– the existing port sampling program aimed at collecting fishery data for bigeye, yellowfin and skipjack tuna that are caught by purse seine and baitboat fisheries in the Gulf of Guinea;
– the closure contained in the proposal from Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire (to cover a larger portion of the fishing grounds) and any alternative closure, taking into account the need to reduce the catch of juvenile fish.

The U.S. has been pressing for years for more control on the Gulf of Guinea so that more fish can escape and migrate to northerly (i.e. our fishing grounds).

Panel 3: Southern albacore and southern bluefin tuna A decision was agreed to move northern albacore into this Panel and out of Panel 2 where Bluefin dominates the panel’s time. Southern Albacore is in great shape and thus no management measures were discussed.

ICCAT has virtually no information/data on southern bluefin tuna. The Commission for the Conserva- tion of Southern Bluefin Tuna (CCSBT) is responsible for stock assessments and management.

Compliance: Dr. Chris Rogers introduced an entirely new compliance review process with the objective of forcing countries to acknowledge their non-compliance (e.g. quota overages, minimum size violations, failure to submit data., etc.). The new process was initially resisted but Chris persisted and by the 3rd or 4th Compliance Committee, countries began volunteering their non-compliance failures rather then wait to be singled out in alphabetical order by Chris with lists/tables prepared by the Secretariat. The public identification (maybe some embarrassment) is likely to improve compliance. Chris is really to be congratulated for his outstanding work and persistence in achieving what was a sea-change in the workings of the Compliance Committee – something we have been trying to achieve for many years.

The new Chairman of ICCAT, Fabio Hazin of Brazil, has also changed the procedure for the Compliance meeting to get their job done. At the next meeting of ICCAT in Recife, Brazil, the Compliance Committee will meet two days prior to the regular sessions to get their business done uninterrupted by other Committee and Panel meetings. Also, there will be a special ICCAT Intersession-al 4-day meeting in March next year “where each CPC (ICCAT Member Countries) involved in Atlantic bluefin tuna fisheries shall demonstrate, its past record and future plan of actions, the abilities sufficient to implement measures stipulated” in numerous ICCAT agreements.

The meeting has ended and the reports above have been adopted in a final quick Plenary Session. The Chairman of ICCAT is closing the meeting noting that this has been the most difficult ICCAT meeting ever. He is close, but there have been a few rival meetings for this title in years past.

As usual, Glenn Delaney was extraordinarily helpful on all critical issues. His advice on negotiating strategies, his relationships with other delegations at the highest level were crucial to protecting our interests under the most difficult circumstances imaginable.

My thanks to Kay Williams (Gulf of Mexico Council) and Pat Augustine (Mid-Atlantic Council) for their solid support on the U.S. Delegation.

Dr. Rebecca Lent did a highly competent job leading the Delegation and worked as hard as any Commissioner I have ever seen. Our Commercial Commissioner Randi Thomas also worked extremely hard and provided us with key intelligence reports and advocacy. Dr. John Graves (Chair- man, IAC) did his usual exceptionally competent and thankless job of keeping the U.S. Delegation on track and efficient in addressing issues and getting our papers in the system. All of the NMFS support staff worked hard (pulling off several all-nighters) creating and reviewing a large number of foreign proposals.

The meeting has ended and the reports above have been adopted in a final quick Plenary Session. The Chairman of ICCAT is closing the meeting noting that this has been the most difficult ICCAT meeting ever. He is close but there have been a few rival meetings for this title in years past.

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