Fish stock conservation: multi-annual recovery plan for bluefin tuna in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean

PURPOSE: to transpose in Community law the International Convention for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) recommendation establishing a recovery plan for bluefin tuna in the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean.

PROPOSED ACT: Council Regulation.

CONTENT: at its Annual Meeting in 2008, the International Convention for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) adopted a recovery plan for bluefin tuna in the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean. The ICCAT recovery plan pursues the same objectives as the recovery plan transposed in Regulation (EC) No 1559/2007.

In order to rebuild the stock, the new ICCAT recovery plan provides for a reduction of the total allowable catch (TAC) level until 2011, restrictions on fishing within certain areas and time periods, a new minimum size, measures concerning sport and recreational fishing activities, measures to address fishing and farming capacity as well as reinforced control measures and the ICCAT Scheme of Joint International Inspection to ensure the effectiveness of that plan.

The Community has been a Party to ICCAT since 1997 and the recommendations become binding on Contracting Parties which do not object to them. As a Contracting Party to this organisation, the Community has a responsibility to apply recommendations adopted to which it has raised no objections.

Therefore, this Regulation lays down the general rules for the application by the Community of a multi-annual recovery plan for bluefin tuna (thunnus thynnus) recommended by the International Commission for the Conservation of the Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT). It shall apply to bluefin tuna in the Eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean.

The objective of that recovery plan shall be to achieve a biomass corresponding to the maximum sustainable yield with greater than 50% probability.

BUDGETARY IMPLICATION: the proposal has no implications for the Community budget.