A recent meeting of the FAO-led Common Oceans Tuna Project was to take stock of progress over the past year in advancing sustainable management and biodiversity conservation in tuna fisheries, while also examining challenges.
The annual steering committee was attended by around forty representatives from the five tuna RFMOs, conservation NGOs and senior officials from the FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Division and the Global Environment Fund (GEF). This tuna steering committee gathering follows the announcement earlier this year by FAO that 99% of tuna landings now come from managed stocks not subject to overfishing.
‘The Common Oceans programme is probably the best value-for-money investment the GEF has made for the oceans,’ said Lorenzo Paolo Galbiati, FAO GEF International Waters Lead.
‘While not large in monetary terms, it plays a crucial role—together with its child projects—in bringing together diverse stakeholders and sectoral activities in areas beyond national jurisdiction, helping to make our oceans more sustainable.’
According to the United Nations Development Programme, which is also a Common Oceans partner, only 1% of global finance for climate change is spent on the oceans. That is even though billions of people rely on fish protein for food and nutrition and fisheries support millions of livelihoods. Tuna is one of the major global fisheries, with the global market in the popular fish worth US$45.4 billion in 2024.
‘It has been incredible to see what can be done when scientists and fisheries managers work together to develop and follow sustainable fish harvest strategies to prevent overfishing,’ said Common Oceans tuna project coordinator Joe Zelasney, commenting that over the next year the project plans to focus on the above with climate change also seen as a major challenge.
‘There is still work to be done, including mainstreaming electronic monitoring to support robust scientific monitoring and management, mitigating bycatch to a minimal level and ridding the oceans of discarded plastic fishing gear.’
