The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) on Monday decided to reduce the annual Atlantic blue-fin tuna fishing quota to about one-third of the current levels after the international body failed to reach a consensus on imposing a complete ban on Tuna fishing during a meeting in Recife, Brazil.
The new ICCAT decision allows the fishing of 13,500 tonnes of bluefin tuna in the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean this year, almost two-thirds of the earlier permitted 19,950 tonnes. It also reduces the fishing season of seine ships, which use nets to encircle and trap shoals of blue-fin tuna, by a month.
Despite the rising international concerns over dwindling blue-fin Tuna stocks because of overfishing in the Mediterranean and Atlantic, the ICCAT said Monday that imposing a total ban on blue-fin Tuna would would encourage illegal fishing.
However, international conservation groups have criticized the ICCAT decision, pointing out that scientists across the world have warned that the blue-fin tuna stock has fallen to almost 15% of its pre-industrial-fishing levels. They argue that only a total ban on blue-fin tuna fishing would ensure that the lucrative fish could recover to the point where the fishery could exist in the future.
The U.S.-based Pew Environment Group condemned the ICCAT's failure to enforce a total ban on blue-fin tuna fishing and described the international body as an organization "driven by short-term commercial fishing interests," the Greenpeace said that the ICCAT has "failed once again to act beyond the interests of a few tuna fishing and farming industries" by approving "recommendations which fail to ensure the recovery of Atlantic blue-fin tuna."
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May 08, 2026 15:50 ET Manufacturing and services sector survey results and labor market data from main economies were the highlight on the economics news front this week. Factory orders and jobs report dominated the news flow in the U.S. Similarly, industrial production data from German garnered attention in Europe. In Asia, purchasing managers’ survey results from China and the central bank decision from Australia were in focus.