26 October 2010: The Fisheries and Aquaculture Department of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has released a Technical Paper, titled “Recent developments in the tuna industry: Stocks, fisheries, management, processing, trade and markets,” which reviews world tuna fisheries, including fishing operations, stock conditions, management measures and socioeconomic aspects of the tuna industry.

The technical paper examines recent changes in processing, trade, marketing and consumer preferences. It underlines the need for integrating socioeconomic and ecological considerations into decision-making processes alongside capacity and allocation issues. While not addressing the broad socioeconomic importance of the tuna industry to the countries in which it operates, the paper highlights the need for this type of research in order to solve current fishery management problems. [The Technical Paper]