Page 20 - Agric Info Mag 2018 - 01

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The twenty fifth (25 ) regular meeting of the ICCAT Commission was
nd
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held in Marrakech, Morocco between the 14 and 22 November 2017.
Mr. Raymond Ryan, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture,
Forestry, Fisheries, Rural Transformation, Industry and Labour and Mr.
Kris Isaacs, Senior Fisheries Officer attended the meeting representing
the Government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The Commission
convened to evaluate the results of the 2017 working plan, together with
the current status of application of the regulatory measures in force, and

to establish the conservation and
management measures for the
future. Attending this year‘s
meeting were six hundred and
thirty (630) delegates from forty
-four (44) contracting parties,
four (4) cooperating non-
Contracting parties, Entities or

Fishing entities and observers from two (2) non-contracting parties, six (6) international organizations and
twenty three (23) NGOs.

During the 2017 calendar year, four (4) species were subject to a full scientific stock assessment by the IC-
CAT standing committee on research and
statistics: Bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus),
Atlantic swordfish (Xiphias gladius), Atlan-
tic shortfin mako shark (Isurus oxyrinchus)
and Mediterranean albacore (Thunnus alba-
cores).

Following advice from the scientific commit-
tee, recommendations were put forward to
the ICCAT plenary for consensus. One of
these recommendations was for an increase
in the Total Allowable Catch (TAC) for east-
ern Atlantic and Mediterranean Bluefin tuna
with a new approved TAC of twenty-eight
thousand, two hundred (28,200) tonnes, an
increase from twenty three thousand, six
hundred and fifty five (23,655) tonnes in
2017. The Committee had agreed that there was a substantial decrease in the catches occurring in the east-
ern Atlantic and Mediterranean sea through implementation of the rebuilding plan and through monitoring
and enforcement controls. Consensus was thus achieved that a rise in the TAC is possible without causing
damage to the current stocks. (Please refer to table 1 for SVG quota allocation for 2018).