WWF congratulates Pacific Islands for certification of major tuna fishery
SWITZERLAND: A skipjack tuna fishery managed by eight Pacific Island nations has been certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), a move WWF says will promote the future health of tuna stocks in the region, bring major benefits to the fishing industry, and have positive repercussions for consumers around the world.
The certification has been awarded conditionally to the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) purse seine free-schooling skipjack tuna (Katsuwonus pelamis) fishery, managed by the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) Convention.
The PNA free school skipjack catch equates to an annual of harvest of 275,000 metric tons - roughly the same weight as 490 fully-fuelled Airbus A380s - at a value of approximately US$1.3 billion at the retail level, with minimal by-catch of other species and juvenile tuna. Consumers, in the not too distant future, could see close to one billion 148-gram cans of tuna harvested from this MSC-certified sustainable fishery on supermarket shelves.
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