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(Resolution 18/01 remains binding on India)
The Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC),
CONSIDERING the objectives of the Commission to maintain stocks in perpetuity and with high probability, at levels not less than those capable of producing their maximum sustainable yield as qualified by relevant environmental and economic factors including the special requirements of developing States in the IOTC area of competence;
BEING MINDFUL of Article XVI of the IOTC Agreement regarding the rights of Coastal States and of Article 87 and 116 of the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea regarding the right to fish on the high seas;
RECOGNISING the special requirements of the developing States, particularly Small Island developing States in Article 24, of the Agreement for the Implementation of the Provisions of the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea of December 1982, relating to the Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks (UNFSA);
RECALLING that Article 5, of UNFSA entitles the conservation and management of highly migratory fish stocks are based on best scientific evidence available and with special reference to Resolution 15/10 for a stock where the assessed status places it within the red quadrant, and with an aim to end overfishing with a high probability and to rebuild the biomass of the stock in as short time as possible;
FURTHER RECALLING that Article 6, of UNFSA, requires the States to be cautious during the application of precautionary approach when information is uncertain, unreliable or inadequate and this should not be a reason for postponing or failing to take conservation and management measures;
CONSIDERING the recommendations adopted by the KOBE II, held in San Sebastian, Spain, June 23 – July 3 2009; implementing where appropriate a freeze on fishing capacity on a fishery by fishery basis and such a freeze should not constrain the access to, development of, and benefit from sustainable tuna fisheries by developing coastal States;
FURTHER CONSIDERING the recommendations adopted by the KOBE III, held in La Jolla, California, 12- 14 July 2011; considering the status of the stocks, each RFMO should consider a scheme for reduction of overcapacity in a way that does not constrain the access to, development of, and benefit from sustainable tuna fisheries, including on the high seas, by developing coastal States, in particular Small Island Developing States, territories, and States with small and vulnerable economies; and Transfer of capacity from developed fishing members to developing coastal fishing members within its area of competence where appropriate;
FURTHER CONSIDERING the report by International Council for the Exploration of Sea and FAO Working Group on Fishing Technology and Fish Behaviour (2006), Gillnets are considered to be one of the least catch controllable and least environmentally sustainable gears;
FURTHER CONSIDERING the recommendations of the 18th Scientific Committee held in Bali, Indonesia, 23 – 27 November 2015 that the catches of yellowfin tuna have to be reduced by 20% of the 2014 levels to recover the stocks to levels above the interim target reference points with 50% probability by 2024;
NOTING THAT the new yellowfin tuna stock assessment produced at the 19th Scientific Committee held in Seychelles mentions: “The stock status determination did not change in 2016, but does give a somewhat more optimistic estimate of stock status than the 2015 assessment, as a direct result of the use of more reliable information on catch rates of longline fisheries and updated catch up to 2015” and that “Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY): estimate for the whole Indian Ocean is estimated at 422,000 t with a range between 406,000-444,000 t” and “the 2011-2015 average catches (390,185 t) were below the estimated MSY level;”
FURTHER NOTING that the estimated probability of the Indian Ocean yellowfin tuna stock to be in the red zone of the Kobe plot has decreased from 94% based on 2015 stock assessment to 67.6% based on the 2016 stock assessment and considering other applicable measures within Resolution 16/01 [superseded by Resolution 17/01, then by Resolution 18/01], particularly the 23% reduction in the limit on the number of FADs deployed by tuna purse seiners from 550 to 425 per vessel per year, effective from 1st January 2017, and the supply vessel limitation could help this progressive improvement of the yellowfin tuna stock status;
NOTING THAT supply vessels contribute to the increase in effort and capacity of purse seiners and that the number of supply vessels has increased significantly over the years;
FURTHER CONSIDERING the discussions of the Working Party on Tropical Tuna held in Montpellier, France, 23 – 28 October 2015 on the limitations and the uncertainties in the stock assessment models due to the unavailability of standardized yellowfin tuna CPUE data;
FURTHER CONSIDERING the call by the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 70/75 upon the States to increase the reliance on scientific advice in developing, adopting and implementing conservation and management measures and to take into account the special requirements of developing States, including Small Island Developing States (SIDS) as highlighted in the SIDS Accelerated Modalities of Action (SAMOA) Pathway;
NOTING THAT Article V (2)(b) of the Agreement for the Establishment of the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission give full recognition to the special interests and needs of Members in the region that are developing countries, in relation to the conservation and management and optimum utilization of stocks covered by this Agreement and encouraging development of fisheries based on such stocks;
FURTHER NOTING THAT Article V(2)(d) requires the Commission to keep under review the economic and social aspects of the fisheries based on the stocks covered by this Agreement bearing in mind, in particular, the interests of developing coastal States. This includes ensuring that conservation and management measures adopted by it do not result in transferring, directly or indirectly, a disproportionate burden of conservation action onto developing States, especially Small Island Developing States;
RECOGNIZING FURTHER the interactions that occur between the fisheries for yellowfin, skipjack and bigeye tuna;
CONSIDERING paragraph 12 of Resolution 16/01 [superseded by Resolution 17/01, then by Resolution 18/01] that allows the Commission to review this Interim Plan before 2019;
ADOPTS, in accordance with the provisions of Article IX, paragraph 1 of the IOTC Agreement, the following:
This resolution shall apply to all fishing vessels targeting tuna and tuna like species in the Indian Ocean of 24 meters overall length and over, and those under 24 meters if they fish outside the EEZ of their flag State, within the IOTC area of competence.
The CPCs will reduce their catch of yellowfin as follows
Purse seine:
a) CPCs whose purse seine catches of yellowfin reported for 2014 were above 5000 MT to reduce their purse seine catches of yellowfin by 15 % from the 2014 levels.
b) The number of Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs) as defined in Resolution 15/08 [superseded by Resolution 17/08, then by Resolution 18/08], paragraph 7 will be no more than 350 active instrumented buoys and 700 acquired annually instrumented buoys per purse seine vessel per year.
c) Supply vessels1 : Supply vessels shall be gradually reduced by 31st December 2022 as specified below in (i), (ii), (iii) and (iv). Flag States shall submit plans for reducing the use of supply vessel to the Scientific Committee no later than 31st December 2017.
i. From 1st of January 2018 to 31st December 2019: 1 supply vessel in support of not less than 2 purse seiners, all of the same flag State.
ii. From 1st of January 2020 to 31st December 2022: 2 supply vessels in support of not less than 5 purse seiners, all of the same flag State.2
iii. No CPC is allowed to register any new or additional supply vessel on the IOTC Record of Authorized Vessels after 31st December 2017.
iv. Any further reduction as from 2022 shall be determined by the Commission in light of the advice of the Scientific Committee.
d) A single purse seine vessel shall not be supported by more than one single supply vessel of the same flag State at any point in time.
e) Complementary to Resolution 15/08 [superseded by Resolution 17/08, then by Resolution 18/08] on “Procedures on FADs Management Plan including a limitation on the number of FADs, more detailed specifications of catch reporting from FAD sets, and the development of improved FAD designs to reduce the incidence of entanglement of non-target species” and to Resolution 15/02 “Mandatory statistical reporting requirements for IOTC Contracting Parties and Cooperating Non-Contracting Parties (CPCs)”, CPC/flag States shall report annually before the 1st of January for the coming year of operations which Purse seiners are served by each supply vessel. This information will be published on IOTC website so as to be accessible to all CPCs and is mandatory. In the light of assessments made available by the Working Group (WG) on dFADs and the Scientific Committee, the Commission shall update, if necessary the above limits in point b) and c).
Gillnet: CPCs whose Gillnet catches of yellowfin reported for 2014 were above 2000 MT to reduce their Gillnet catches of yellowfin by 10 % from the 2014 levels.
Longline: CPCs whose Longline catches of yellowfin reported for 2014 were above 5000 MT to reduce their Longline catches of yellowfin by 10 % from the 2014 levels.
CPCs’ other gears: CPCs whose catches of yellowfin from other gears reported for 2014 were above 5000 MT to reduce their other gear catches of yellowfin by 5 % from the 2014 levels.
Flag States will determine appropriate methods for achieving these catch reductions, which could include capacity reductions, effort limits, etc.., and will report to the IOTC Secretariat in their Implementation Report, the measures they have taken.
CPCs shall monitor the yellowfin tuna catches from their vessels in conformity with Resolution 15/01 “On the recording of catch and effort data by fishing vessels in the IOTC area of competence” and Resolution 15/02 “Mandatory statistical reporting requirements for IOTC Contracting Parties and Cooperating Non Contracting Parties (CPCs)” and will provide a summary of most-recent yellowfin catches for the consideration of the IOTC Compliance Committee.
Each year, the Compliance Committee shall evaluate the level of compliance with the catch limits deriving from this Resolution and shall make recommendations to the Commission accordingly. The Scientific Committee via its Working Party on Tropical Tunas, shall in 2018, conduct a new assessment of the status of the Yellowfin stock using all available data
The Scientific Committee via its Working Party on Tropical Tunas shall in 2018 undertake an evaluation of the effectiveness of the measures detailed in this Resolution, taking into account all sources of fishing mortality and possible alternatives aiming at returning and maintaining biomass levels at the Commission’s target level. After consideration of the results of this evaluation, the Commission shall take corrective measures accordingly.
The Commission shall, based on the improved artisanal fishery data and the assessment of the state and impact of the artisanal fishery on the yellowfin stocks, take appropriate measures on the management of the artisanal yellowfin tuna fishery, at its Commission meeting in 2018.
The measures contained within this Resolution shall be considered as interim measure and will be reviewed by the Commission no later than at its annual Session in 2019.
The provisions of paragraphs 3, 4, 5 and 6 shall be applicable to Small Island Developing States, Least Developed Countries and Small Vulnerable Economies on catches of yellowfin reported for 2014 or 2015.
Nothing in this resolution shall pre-empt or prejudice future allocation.
This Resolution supersedes IOTC Resolution 17/01 On an interim plan for rebuilding the Indian Ocean yellowfin tuna stock.
1 For the purpose of this Resolution, the term “supply vessel” includes “support vessel”. 2 The subparagraphs (i) and (ii) shall not apply to flag States which use only one supply vessel.
