Member States of the world’s five tuna regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) met from 22-26 January 2007 in Kobe, Japan, to discuss conservation and management measures for overfished tuna.

About 250 delegates gathered to address issues including: illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing; fishing capacity; and cooperation and coordination amongst RFMOs. Participants recognized that the challenges commonly faced by tuna RFMOs include the establishment of effective and comprehensive stock rebuilding programs, collection of reliable data for stock assessment, restriction of fishing capacity/fishing effort, implementation of effective monitoring, control and surveillance measures, striking a balance between the needs of developed and developing States, and effective cooperation among the tuna RFMOs. The Kobe meeting concluded with the adoption by consensus of the Course of Actions for RFMOs, which describes key areas and challenges, technical work to cooperate across RFMOs to address the challenges, and follow-up actions. Conservation NGOs lamented that although participants had noted with concern that most commercially important tuna stocks in the world are fully or over-exploited, they did not agree on an action plan to help reverse the decline in these valuable species. WWF underlined that urgent concrete action is needed to reduce fishing capacity to sustainable levels, ensure legally caught supplies of tuna to markets, reduce the fisheries’ bycatch of species like turtles, seabirds and sharks, and ensure that developing countries can enter tuna fisheries sustainably. At the start of the meeting, the Food and Agriculture Organization had warned that global efforts for the sustainable use of tuna stocks could face trouble unless a proper data collection system is put in place.
Links to further information
Report of the meeting
WWF Press release, 26 January 2007
FAO Press release, 22 January 2007