Morocco urges balanced management of threatened tuna species

Morocco called in the ongoing meeting of International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) which was held in Agadir, southwest of Morocco, to think about new balanced tools to regulate and manage the species threatened worldwide , the Moroccan news agency MAP reported Tuesday. These mechanisms should rely on a well-founded scientific opinion, a collective commitment to collect and convey information data as well as the optimization of traceability of catches upstream and downstream, said the Moroccan Ministry of Fisheries at the opening of the ICCAT, which will be closed on Nov. 19. The meeting will decide future bluefin tuna catch limits. A key ingredient of sushi threatened in the early 2000s, bluefin tuna stocks were placed under restrictions. ICCAT formulated a 15-year recovery program in 2006. According to the latest scientific findings, bluefin tuna stocks are improving, and many Asiatic and European countries, such as Japan and Spain, are pressing for an increase in fishing quotas for 2013. However, environmentalists urged the 48 nations in ICCAT to endorse scientific recommendations to keep the current quotas of 14,200 tons a year intact for the next three years, for a better protection of these species. The total quotas were set at around 30,000 tons from 1999 to 2008. When the situation was considered disastrous in 2009, they were slashed to 22,000 tons, then down to 13,500 tons in 2010 and 12,900 tons for 2011 and 2012, for all 48 ICCAT member countries. The ICCAT is an inter-governmental fishery organization responsible for the conservation of tunas and tuna-like species in the Atlantic Ocean and its adjacent seas.