IOTC Adopts Management Measures for Skipjack Tuna
SEAFOODNEWS.COM [SeafoodNews] By Michael Ramsingh - May 27, 2016
The Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) adopted management measures for the Indian Ocean’s skipjack tuna fishery during its annual meeting this week in La Reunion, Guatemala.
According to the agreement a stock assessment of the fishery will be conducted every three years starting in 2017.
Annual skipjack catch limits will be governed by a harvest control rule that uses 40% of the unfished spawning stock biomass as a threshold refrence point for reducing removals. If the estimate of current spawning stock biomass is above this level, catch limits may increase. Below this level, they must decrease.
To provide more stability, the rule also includes a cap on how much the catch limit can change annually. Either direction, the most the catch limit can change is 30% of the previous recommended catch limit.
The maximum recommended catch limit is 900,000t, to avoid adverse effects of potentially inaccurate stock assessments...
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