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Español The Extended Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna (CCSBT), at its Fifteenth Annual Meeting held in October 2008, adopted a Recommendation to Mitigate the Impact on Ecologically Related Species of Fishing for Southern Bluefin Tuna (http://www.ccsbt.org/docs/pdf/about_the_commission/Recommendation_ERS.pdf).
The CCSBT recommends that Members* and Cooperating Non-Members** implement FAO National Plans of Action – Seabirds – if they have already not done so.
The recommendation also seeks Members and Cooperating Non-Members to comply with all the current binding and recommendatory measures aimed at protecting seabirds (and sea turtles and sharks) which are adopted from time to time by the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission and the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission - when they are fishing within IOTC and WCPFC areas.
The IOTC’s Resolution on Reducing the Incidental Bycatch of Seabirds in Longline Fisheries (09/03) and the WCPFC’s Conservation and Management Measure to Mitigate the Impact of Fishing for Highly Migratory Fish Stocks on Seabirds (2007-04) are the applicable measures.
The recommendation also addresses the issue of collecting and reporting data on ecologically related species to the Commission.
For earlier news items on the IOTC and its mitigation work click here and here.
*Australia, Fishing Entity of Taiwan, Indonesia, Japan, New Zealand, Republic of Korea
**European Community, The Philippines, South Africa
Posted by John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 23 January 2009