Pacific bluefin tuna will get some help as countries agree to new harvest strategy

The Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission wrapped its Lisbon meeting by adopting a long-term harvest strategy for Pacific bluefin tuna, a species that had crashed to 2.6 percent of its historic size in 2016 before a rebuilding plan brought it back. The new rules allow modest catch increases with automatic cuts if the population dips again, a decade in the making via a joint working group with Japan, the U.S., and Mexico.

The commission failed, however, to agree on a matching strategy for bigeye, skipjack, and yellowfin tuna, species caught in far greater volumes, after what one observer described as opposition from unnamed countries wanting more fishing capacity. Industry groups had pushed for the multispecies plan and called the failure a symptom of proposals routinely dumped on the meeting's final day, leaving no time for real consideration.

NGOs also used the meeting to demand transparency on who actually owns and profits from fishing vessels, a request notably not mentioned as resolved.

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