ICCAT has once again decided that they will take action “next year”


11 December 2009

The 21st Regular Meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) was held in Recife, Brazil from November 6-15, 2009. The ten-day meeting concluded with one measure adopted for the conservation of sharks. While this measure banned retention and landing of any bigeye thresher sharks, a catch exemption of 110 threshers was given to Mexico.

The Shark Alliance and Pew Environment Group called on ICCAT Parties to agree to several measures:

1) Prohibit the removal of shark fins at sea in order to improve enforcement of the shark finning ban and facilitate collection of species-specific catch data.

• Belize, Brazil and the United States offered a proposal requiring that sharks be landed with their fins naturally attached. While this proposal was not agreed to, the issue gained significant attention, and support was estimated at over half of the participating parties.

2) Set concrete limits to significantly reduce fishing pressure on overfished North Atlantic shortfin mako sharks, in line with previous ICCAT Recommendations.

• No limits on shortfin mako were agreed upon even though two different proposals were put forward during the meeting; one by the European Community and another by the United States. Efforts were made by Japan to have bycatch of mako sharks excluded from the provisions of either proposal. This suggestion was rejected by other countries as the vast majority of shortfin makos in ICCAT fisheries are caught as bycatch and this exception would make either proposal ineffective.

3) Agree to precautionary measures to cap fishing for blue sharks to prevent overfishing.

• A fishing cap for blue sharks was not considered at this meeting.

4) Set an ambitious schedule for hosting a special porbeagle shark management meeting of representatives from interested RFMOs, as resolved in 2008.

• A mediocre proposal for porbeagles was offered and fortunately, failed.

Due to the heightened interest in sharks at ICCAT, there was discussion on creating a separate panel within ICCAT to address sharks. Currently, sharks are discussed in the same ICCAT sub-meeting as swordfish, sailfish and bycatch of sea turtles and sea birds.


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