Bringing together like-minded organisations that are concerned about the ongoing negative impacts of industrial tuna fisheries

Worldwide, oceanic shark and ray abundance has declined by 71 percent since 1970

About CTTF

The Coalition for Transparent Tuna Fisheries’ (CTTF) brings together a group of like-minded organisations that are concerned about the ongoing negative environmental impacts that industrial tuna fisheries, and the destructive fishing gears they use, are having on ocean biodiversity. The ocean contains unique biodiversity and fragile ecosystems, is a valuable source of food and is also a major sink for anthropogenic carbon. In the face of the accelerating impacts of climate change, high levels of biodiversity loss, and increasing human pressures on the ocean, CTTF believes that responsible stewardship is required now more than ever to ensure that tuna fisheries are truly sustainable and that they are operated in a transparent and responsible manner.

Today, much of the fishing gear used by industrial fisheries is highly destructive and non-selective resulting in the bycatch of millions of other animals, many of which are threatened species, thereby causing substantial and sometimes even irreversible damage to the ecosystem. Instead of viewing the environmental impacts of industrial fisheries as collateral damage in a quest to catch tuna more efficiently, CTTF believes that these impacts need to be fully understood and addressed with defined absolute maximum levels of bycatch for each non-target species. Bycatch limits should be defined applying a risk-based approach based on the threatened status of a species, informed by science, and pursuing always a precautionary approach in the absence of reference points for a species. Fishery managers should also be provided with accurate data so that they can make informed management decisions. The transparency required to do this is all too often still lacking in many industrial tuna fisheries.

For instance, a recent study[1] showed huge declines in the abundance of sharks in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans. Worldwide, oceanic shark and ray abundance has declined by 71 percent since 1970. More than half of the 31 species examined are now considered to be endangered, or even critically endangered. Tuna fisheries have played a major role in these declines, with industrial-scale fishing fleets having been able to reach distant waters since the early 1950s, and gradually spreading their effort to exploit the entire global ocean. The shark declines noted in the study has been attributed to overfishing, in many cases further driven by harmful subsidies which are used to expand many industrial tuna fleets. Tuna fleets built on the back of harmful fisheries subsidies, such as longliners deploying thousands of hooks in a single longline and purse seiners using drifting fish aggregating devices (FADs), have had a major impact, not only shark populations, but also on other endangered, threatened, and protected species such as turtles, cetaceans, and some billfish species. The ghost gear and plastic pollution impacts of these fisheries also have long-lasting effects on sensitive habitats and ecosystems such as corals and sandy beaches.

The tools and technology are available to better manage these tuna fisheries, ensuring that they operate with greater levels of transparency and accountability. Many of these fisheries operate on the high seas, often with very little control and oversight. The high seas, the region of the global ocean that is beyond national jurisdiction, belongs to us all and includes some of the most biologically important, least protected, and most critically threatened ecosystems in the world.

CTTF are keen to collaborate with like-minded organisations who want to see the world’s tuna fisheries following an ecosystem based approach to fisheries management which would protect and restore threatened and endangered species and habitats, and lead to healthy marine ecosystems.

[1] Pacoureau, N., Rigby, C.L., Kyne, P.M. et al. Half a century of global decline in oceanic sharks and rays. Nature 589, 567–571 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-03173-9

Mission and Purpose

CTTF’s mission and purpose is to raise awareness among consumers about the destructive fishing practices associated with industrial tuna fisheries, engage with markets and policymakers to help find solutions and ultimately help ensure that tuna fisheries operate in a transparent and responsible way, thereby mitigating many of the negative environmental impacts they might have.

d-FADs

(drifting-Fish Aggregating Devices)

Scientists have also noted that industrial-scale purse seining on drifting-FADs leads to the indiscriminate catch of tuna, including juvenile yellowfin and bigeye tuna. This is of concern to fisheries managers, primarily because yellowfin and bigeye tuna associated with FADs are younger and smaller than those found in free schools. The large numbers of drifting-FADs now present in our oceans increases the likelihood of tuna encountering them, leading to a cascade of effects. For example, the “ecological trap” hypothesis suggests that tuna and other fish can be trapped within networks of drifting FADs. This could alter the migratory paths of such fish and therefore affect characteristics such as growth and reproduction. The high numbers of juvenile tuna caught in association with these drifting-FADs can have long-lasting impacts on the health of tuna stocks.

These fish aggregating devices are deployed in their tens of thousands each year by industrial purse seine fishing vessels, attracting large schools of tuna underneath them in the otherwise quite featureless open ocean. Up to 100m of netting or other materials are attached beneath each of these floating platforms, thereby creating micro-ecosystems dotted all over the ocean. The massive tuna purse seiners, many of them longer than 100 meters in length and with a gross tonnage greater than 4,000 metric tonnes, use sophisticated satellite location devices to constantly keep track of their drifting-FADs. Endangered turtles, sharks and marine mammals are often caught when the drifting-FADs are encircled by the massive purse seine nets and are then hauled aboard as ‘bycatch’ together with the tuna destined for markets in the EU, UK and elsewhere.

These are however not the only destructive impacts associated with drifting-FADs. Many of the environmental problems caused by drifting-FADs occur when purse seine vessels lose, discard or deliberately abandon these devices – often because it is no longer financially viable to retrieve them. The ecological damage caused by drifting-FADs through ghost fishing, plastic pollution and damage to sensitive coastal habitats such as corals are felt long after they’ve been lost, abandoned or discarded.

Further information on environmental impacts of d-FADS:

More than half of the 31 species examined are now considered to be endangered

MSC Certification

As part of our work to ensure tuna fisheries are behaving in a responsible and ethical manner, CTTF regularly engages with the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) to contest their certification of industrial tuna fleets.

In a major milestone for ensuring the safety of tuna stocks for future generations, an independent adjudicator for the MSC has upheld two objections by CTTF to the certification of the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) fishery. The ruling determines that this fishery cannot sell bigeye tuna or tuna caught with FADs, under MSC certification. The decision draws into question the sustainability of all industrial fisheries that currently use FADs, and CTTF is now calling on the Marine Stewardship Council to immediately halt any new drifting FAD fisheries being proposed for MSC certification to save its reputation as a responsible certification body with integrity.

The MSC’s Independent Adjudicator John McKendrick QC’s Post Remand Decision can be read here