Today's episode is going to be focused on fisheries management. So we're going to find out about tuna, folks. It's going to be a really great episode to say, hey, look, what's going on with tuna fishing? Should we be eating tuna? Should we not be eating tuna? What type of tuna should we be eating? How many species are fished? We're gonna find out all about that because we have Dr. Victor Restrepo, who is from the International
Seafood Sustainability Foundation, the ISSF. They've just released a report called Snapshot of Large-Scale Tuna Per Seine Fishing Vessels, or Fleets, that just came out in June 2024. I've been working with them to get a podcast episode out to talk about sort of the number of vessels that have changed you know, how many are out there, where they're from, what country
they're flying. So you're going to hear all about fishing and just the intricacies of fishing and what needs to be monitored and what needs to be done to actually get a better fishing overall. And Victor is on the podcast to talk about that. We talk a lot about things like what he thinks should happen, how surprised he's that there hasn't been a really increase in vessels, but also he's kind of disappointed there hasn't been a decrease in vessels. It's going to be really cool to
hear all about tuna fishing. So that's what we're going to do today on today's episode. Let's start the show. Hey everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action. And on today's episode,
just like a lot of our other episodes, knowledge is power. You're here to find out how you can protect the ocean. That's why I named the podcast the way it's named. And we're going to find out. We're going to find out how to protect the ocean when it comes to tuna fishing and tuna fisheries in general. Dr. Victor Restrepo is on the podcast today. He's been involved in tuna fisheries management from 1992 to the present day. He
knows a ton about the industry. He's seen how He has a lot of knowledge and experience within the tuna fishing industry and science. kind of what his, he sees where the industry needs to go to really help and how processing companies like tuna processing companies are really at the forefront of helping make science part of fisheries management more and more and more. So we're going to talk all about that today. I'm really, really excited for you to hear this interview.
And if you want, I'm going to be putting up links to the report. I'm going to put links to the organization so that you can get more information on the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation. But in the meantime, here is the interview with Dr. Restrepo talking about the report, Snapshot of Large-Scale Tuna Per Seine Fishing Fleets. It's a really long title, but it's a great report and it's a great interview. So enjoy, and I will talk to you after. Hey, Victor. Welcome to the How to
Right on. Let's do this. This is going to be a lot of fun. I'm really looking forward to this. We're going to be talking about a specific report here with you, Victor, that came out in June of this year, of 2024. It's called Snapshot of Large-Scale Tuna Per Seine Fishing Fleets. This is gonna be a really interesting report, just kind of an update on what's happening with the tuna fishing.
And so we're gonna get an update on number of vessels that are there, how much is actually being taken, what kind of conservation measures are there that's gonna happen and happening right now. It's gonna be really great. I'm really, really excited for it. But before we get into that, Victor, why don't Okay, my name is Victor Restrepo. I have a PhD from the University of Miami on stock assessment methods and I have been involved in tuna science since about
1991. I have a lot of experience in the U.S. government with NOAA at the University of Miami and also internationally in the so-called Tuna Regional Fishery Management Organizations or RFMOs in short. I've been involved with them since 1999 or Okay, so you've seen quite a lot of changes over your time, you know, during this time. I mean, tuna fishing has
been, you know, it feels like it's been going up and down. This is not me citing any data or anything like that, but it just feels in the news, like sometimes there's some tuna fish that are on the brink of extinction, other times they're doing well. Can you kind of give us like a little bit of a snapshot over your time what you've seen in terms of tuna fishing in general? I know there's a lot of species and I know that's kind of a loaded question to ask, but there's sort
Yeah, no, I think that's an excellent question, Andrew. Bluefin tuna, there are three species of bluefin tuna in 23 stocks of major commercial tunas. And they account for only 1% of the catch. But they account for 99% of the noise. So a lot of the words, when you hear the word extinction or something like that, it's usually a bluefin tuna stock that
the media or whoever is talking about. And they have been overfished in the past because bluefin tuna in the sashimi market is one of the most expensive fishes. An individual bluefin could cost $70,000 or $100,000. So they have been the subject of illegal fishing and very, very high fishing pressure. But I have seen that turn around since about 2009. There have been major changes in the management of the bluefin tunas
of the world. I would say that the situation is not totally out of danger completely, but all of the stocks have turned around one way or the other. The Interesting. That's really interesting. You've been a part of this for quite some time. When you worked for NOAA, Were
you just working on American species? Because I know with NOAA, they tend to work with other countries internationally, like in the Pacific, I know that they look at you know, with sharks they look at different sort of regions with like RMO, RMFOs, RMOs? Sorry, I forgot. RFMOs, they look at different RFMOs like in the Pacific. Is that the same thing with tuna when No, it was just like that, but it was more in the Atlantic. So there are five tuna
or FMOs. There are two in the Pacific, one in the Atlantic, one in the Indian Ocean, and one in the Southern Hemisphere. And I used to work for the Atlantic one, both in the Secretariat and with NOAA as a U.S. scientist that Gotcha. And that was just not one species of bluefin. It was all the tuna that were involved there, right? Right. Absolutely. OK. And from a term of fishing gear, can you just explain to the audience how tuna are typically fished? Yes, the major fishing
method for all tunas is purse seining. This is basically a boat that makes a set around a school of tunas and they close the bottom of the net, that's the purse, and then they haul it out and take the catch. And the majority of the catch by porcelainers is of so-called tropical tunas. There are three species, skimjack tuna, bigeye tuna, and yellowfin tuna. And if you like to eat tuna in a can, chances
are it was caught by porcelaining. On a few occasions they are caught by longliners, which are baited hooks, but that's really only for albacore tuna. Most Okay, okay. Now, with purse seining, from my understanding in the past, and again, I'm not so familiar with this subject matter, which is why I'm happy to have you on, my understanding is that purse seining, in some cases, have allowed other animals to get in as bycatch, in particular dolphins. Now,
when you look at a can, it says dolphin-free. tuna catching. Can you just talk a little bit about how that all came to be and what's the status of purse seining when it comes to bycatch All tuna fishing gears have some level of bycatch. Maybe not harpooning or something like that, that is very specific, but everything else takes bycatch. And in fact, longline fisheries take a lot more bycatch than person fisheries do. But
the mix of species that they take is different. When it comes to dolphins, this is really a phenomenon that mostly happens in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, where dolphins associate with tunas, and the two schools kind of mix together. Oh, I see. And there are some Persian vessels, not U.S. vessels, you know, from some other flags that are very good at spotting the dolphins from very far away using helicopters and other sites. And they know that if they find dolphins, they'll find tuna.
So they catch both and they let the dolphins go, although some of them die sometimes, and then they keep the tuna catch. But that's really only in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. It's not a practice that occurs OK. It seems as though, you know, when we, you know, and again, I hear this from the media a lot of the time. So it seems like we talk about, you know, tuna fishing and we talk about, you know, over fish stocks. We talk about the whole
dolphin issue that happens. It seems like a lot of times that gets grouped in with all tuna fishing, you know, from the people who consume it or people who are talking about it because they get it confused with, you know, Eastern Pacific fishing where you have, you know, dolphin associations and then, you know, just a small percentage of the total catch of tuna. is bluefin tuna, and you're just like, hey, that's not even that much, and it's very small. Why
do you think that is? Why do you think it gets so confusing when we talk about the communication of Well, things are complicated, and one of the things that we try to do in ISSF is to explain complicated things in ways that are easier to understand. But I have to admit that I don't think we can ever explain something in one sentence, because that's not such a thing. But bad news are very easy to say in one sentence. It's very difficult to describe something that is
quite complex in just a few words. But if you put it as bad news, it's quite easy. So that's the difficulty that we face all of the time. Thank goodness we have very, very good communications people working with us. So I'm a scientist, I'm a little bit complicated myself. I try to simplify things as much as I can, but I can only go so far. And then our communications people are just magnificent at taking where I leave it and taking it to the next step in simplifying it with
Yeah, I feel, I completely agree with you. I feel when it comes to communication, it can be very difficult to sort of separate the ifs and the buts from our results as scientists. You have these scientists, but then there's always a caveat, and there's always something else, and there's always some external sort of force coming in to make it even more complicated and stuff. So I think it's
really interesting, and I completely agree with you. It's never an easy byline to just put out being like, hey, tuna are doing great, or tuna are not doing so great. And so forth so I think that's that's really anything with that said we're talking about this report snapshot of large-scale tuna purse seine fishing fleets Now this is
like a fleet. That's that's monitored and a report I understand one came out in 2023 in June and this one came out in June 2024 so this is an annual report that looks at these this type of Commercial Yes, we have updated that report 12 times altogether. So we started in 2012 or something like that. And each year we look at the, well, we use different sources of data. One of them is the list of vessels that are authorized in every RFMO. But
we also use other types of information. And a lot of changes happen between one year and the next when it comes to vessels. They change flags. They change names. They change the radio call sign. They change many things. They move to other oceans and so on. And so we keep track of that. There are also some vessels that sink, some that are scrapped, some new ones are built, and so on. So our job is to make that snapshot around June every year. Okay.
And what's the reason for vessels, obviously vessels that are scrapped and obviously sink, that's dangerous, it's the danger of being in the ocean all the time. What would be the advantage or the reason for boats changing
flags or changing countries where they originate from? Is it just they get bought over or what's the reasoning for I think in most cases it's because they have more access to the resources because the particular country that they're reflying to has, let's say, a quota or a number of fishing days that they can use to basically have a joint venture with a vessel loader and then reflag the vessel. And so it's business convenience, I
Okay, I got you. And now these are all legally registered vessels that you're looking at. There are cases of illegal fishing, but this report focuses on the ones that you can track, the ones that you know. are there and the differences. You say there's changes between the number of boats, the capacity and all that. So out of this year, let's say compared to last year, what were the major differences in the number of I don't remember all of the details of
how, but I think that the numbers didn't change much. But there were a lot of changes, like there were additions, and there were deletions, and there was reflagging. But overall, they stayed around 650 vessels. Now, we're talking about very large vessels. We're talking about vessels that can carry more than 400 tons of tuna in a year trip. Usually, they're vessels larger than 55 or 60 meters long. So, they're not that easy to hide. They're not that easy to become illegal. Right, of course. They
are monitored by different means. They are insured. They're super expensive vessels. One of these new vessels could cost 30 or Wow, okay. And then plus the crew and everything like that, like you're looking at. a fairly significant business operation happening with these vessels. Okay. And then now for the monitoring of, you know, to ensure that they're catching the right catch and so forth, are there fisheries observers on these ships?
On porcinius, in every ocean for tropical tuna porcinius, which is what we're talking about in that report, there are observers 100% of the time on these vessels, except in the Indian Ocean. The Indian Ocean only requires 5%. coverage, but most of the vessel owners have voluntarily agreed to 100% as well, in some cases because the Gotcha. So there's like the people who they're selling to require 100% coverage for observers. Exactly. Okay. That's good. That's good to hear. That's
nice that they're going kind of above and beyond what they're supposed to. It's nice that other sort of lines within the supply chain are demanding that. So that's always nice. So what can you tell me about this report in terms of sort of results that you've seen, changes you've seen, either from last year or that you've noticed that kind of stood out to Well, one of the things that I have noticed is
frustrating because it hasn't changed. It's not so much about the change that I'm going to talk about, but about something that hasn't changed, and that is that many of the vessels are authorized to fish in several RFMOs during the same year. They don't necessarily fish in several, in two or more RFMOs, but they're authorized to fish
in two or more of the RFMOs. So it's difficult to envisage a system where that fishing capacity could be managed globally, because there are no restricted vessel records in each of the RFMOs, which is something
that I find frustrating. And it would be ideal if they could control the floodgates, let's say, of vessels that could move easily from one ocean to the other, or one ocean Because there's a period where you could have a number of vessels in one RFMO instead of spreading them out over, like restrict them only to certain RFMOs, because maybe there's more of a concentration of tuna in that area.
Yeah, I'm concerned that there are too many porcelainers already that can catch, I mean, the catch that they make, they could make easily with maybe half of the number of vessels that are out there. So it's not only an economic inefficiency, it's waste, you know, and that overcapacity is always a pressure point for fishing harder and fishing harder
and then requiring more regulations. It's just making everything more difficult, and I wish we could manage capacity globally in a meaningful way, but having these Yeah, agreed. With that said, does It depends on the RFMO. Some of them, the flag state usually has a number of fishing days assigned to them or a quota assigned to them. And then it's that country that subdivides that catch quota or the number of fishing days into the different vessels that make up their fisheries. The systems are
quite different in all of the oceans. They're perhaps a little bit more similar in the Indian and Atlantic oceans, but Yeah, it's interesting, too, because if you think about it, if one boat has access to a number of different RFMOs, then they can go into one, fish their quota, and then go back into another and fish their other quota. And then if they can go to another, they can continue to fish. which almost Yeah, I think it depends a lot on the flag state
that has to regulate them. And the flag state has to decide if they do give them permission or not to move to different RFMOs during the same year. If they can manage that They will, yeah. But because some vessels have access to a number of different ones, Can one country that has control over that, or the countries that have control over their FMO, can they tell what each If they belong to their flag, yes. Otherwise, generally not. the catches are only known in the aggregate for
an entire country. An entire country and fishing type. So you might know what the catch by U.S. flag pursuers was in the Western Pacific last year, but you won't know what each individual Right, because they could go over to the different... How do we get a regulation or how do we get countries to only allow their flagship to, you know, catch in one RFMO? How
I don't think that it necessarily has to happen like that. Okay. But I think it has to happen in an agreed management situation where all of the countries decide how to go about it collectively. So I don't think it's so much something that one individual country can accomplish. It's a collective effort. Got And are there committees or are there sort of collaborations where countries get together to talk about tuna catches? Only within an RFMO currently. So that's
what they do. Basically, the RFMOs have a scientific committee structure. And then on top of that, they have a political decision-making structure. And that's basically all they do. But they cannot work between RFMOs at the same time, with several RFMOs. They only do it within one, one at a time. That's interesting. So it's almost like they're just siloed into these different countries
in RFMOs. Interesting. OK. What else from that report stood out to you as Well, I'm surprised that the number of vessels has not increased a lot over these last 12 years. I mean, it has hovered around 640 to 670 all of this time. So that's good. I wish that they had decreased somehow, but at least And what do you think the reasons for that is? I mean, it's expensive to have these boats. Is it more of there's not enough catch out there, there's not enough interest out
there? It seems like Tuna's very popular. So what do you think the reason why it hasn't ballooned out to above 270? I mean, I think I'm looking at numbers here. I just found the numbers from last year was 650, this year was 652. So not much difference when you look at the range that you just mentioned. Why do I think it's partly costs. It's partly limited resources. I mean, they have quotas in place or limits in the number of days
and so on. So I guess I'm not an expert in economics of fishing vessels, but I guess they must do the math and figure out that it's a tremendous investment for that type of activity. There are also regulations in place that are not necessarily from the RFMOs, like, for example, ISSF has a number of conservation measures, and one of them has to do with new fishing capacity, like new vessels being constructed without scrapping
old vessels. So all of the processing companies that work with us, they are committed to only source tuna from porcelainers, that meets the criteria of that conservation measure. So it's not only the RFMOs, it's also other conservation driven forces from the markets.
Now, I probably should have asked this right at the beginning, but you do work for the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation, and it sounds like you guys are connecting the tuna fishing industry with the right guidance for tuna fishing in general or just seafood in general. Can you just talk about the purpose of the ISSF and how it works That's a long question. But basically what we do is everything is science-driven at some point. Science is where we start. And it has to do
a lot with the status of the stocks. and, you know, what conservation measures we can try to use to influence the fishing industry to reduce bycatch, to reduce other environmental impacts, to reduce the use of fish aggregating devices. These are something that porciniers use a lot to attract to us. fish aggregated devices that are not biodegradable, for example, or that are entangling. So we have a number of conservation measures that the participating companies that work with us are
committed to follow. Now the conservation measures are adopted by the ISSF board, which is composed by a mix of different people, including scientists, people from environmental NGOs, people closer to the fishing industry, and so on. So it's a good spread of people that make those decisions. And then the participating companies have to follow those OK, OK. And so how do you attract these companies?
Do you have people within the organization that goes out and builds those relationships with the different companies within These are processing companies that we're talking about, not fishing companies. Sorry, processing companies, yeah. And the universe of processing companies is not huge compared to the universe of fishing vessels. Gotcha, okay. It's a much smaller universe.
Basically, I understand that when ISSF was born, I wasn't there back in 2008 or 2009, there was already a group of processing companies that were very much aligned in saying we need the RFMOs to pay more attention to the science. We need things to be more scientifically sound. So I think that coalition already existed back then with a large number Yeah, you know, it's it's really interesting. I've been getting involved in, you know, people have been coming to me for to share stories, or
I've seen stories online that I've wanted to cover on. on the podcast and it's very interesting when a new issue has arisen, you know, that people are discovering and they're researching and so forth and they're trying to put,
you know, something together, trying to have like a call to action together. The first thing I look for is like, is there anybody out there that's part of the industry that's willing to, you know, stand up and have these values where they want to protect whatever they're, like in your case, it would be the processors that want to protect the fish that they're processing. They want to make sure it's sustainable for the
years to come. So they have these values where they get together. And as you mentioned, before the ISSF was born, they had these kind of committees like, we need to do something better. Here comes the ISSF being like, hey, we'll help you do that. We'll help you follow the science. We'll help, you know, research and do the science on it so that you can make better decisions.
How important for you as a scientist do you think it is when companies, even the processors, have these values that they want to be like, we need to follow the science more. How important is that to It's very important. I have been involved, like I said, with RFMOS for many, many years, usually as a scientist, but then also going to the more political decision-making meetings. And over time, I have seen a big change about who makes up the delegations of the different member countries to
the RFMOs. And when I first started, it was largely the fishing industry themselves. And the RFMOs are all about flag state responsibilities. So they were very directly linked to whatever activities were going to be managed. And over time, I have seen a lot more involvement from
the processing sector and even from the marketing sector. And now you have, in the RFMOs, you have letters that are signed requesting the Commission to do something like adopting high-risk control rules or other types of management measures that are more modern. And these letters are signed by 120 or 150 different groups, including processors, and fishing associations, and environmental NGOs, people from universities. And so it's really amazing how the advocacy has
That's awesome. That's great to hear. Now, obviously, we still have a lot of work to do in terms of conserving these wonderful fish and just making sure that all stakeholders are included and there's a lot more voices at the table. Where do you see the industry moving in the future? optimistic about tuna fishing in the future based on, you know, sort of how things have changed so far and sort of who's involved at
the decision-making level and who wants to be involved? Are you optimistic of the future or do you still think we have a Well, the ton of work will never go away. Fisheries management is a very tedious thing and it's complicated like we were talking about before. But there are more players on the table now, before it was all the RFMO members and what they could do as flag states. Now you have other things, you have other pressure
points, like the case of ISSF. Or you have fisheries that want to be certified by the Maria Stewardship Council, for example. That's another way of bringing change about. And in fact, the Marine Stewardship Council requirements have pushed the RFMOs to make a lot of changes so that their regulations fit within the MSC system in a better way. It's not just the RFMOs that are working at it alone now. There's a series of activities ongoing And let's be honest, better guidance. You have more people
at the table. You have a lot more experts at the table that are looking at various angles of fisheries management, which we know is a big deal. And so it's nice to see that we're getting more and more people involved, better guidance for different aspects of the industry. And
so we can move forward in a great way. One thing that I always ask, sort of at the end as we talk about, you know, large sort of management decisions, is how can like, you know, people, I have people in my audience who want to help the ocean, right? That's why they come to this, is how to protect the ocean. How do you think people, individuals, can get involved within the industry here and just kind of help out, you know, is it more
of supporting the organizations that are involved? Getting more awareness involved like what would you recommend like if somebody asked you just off the street? How can I help? With tuna fishing Well, I would say that it's very important that we all become more knowledgeable about what's going on, even if the facts are complicated. And
I would say education is the first thing. Now, if the person as a consumer wants to use that knowledge to make decisions about what tuna to purchase and what tuna not to purchase, for example, that's one way of helping out. and hopefully rewarding the fisheries that are doing very well their job. Yes. And not rewarding the ones that are not such good actors. So I think at the consumer level, that's probably the best thing. And of course, if they're wealthy, they could
Absolutely. Absolutely. Victor, this has been, uh, such an amazing time. I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule to, uh, you know, letting us know, giving us a lot of information about the report, but also about tuna fisheries in general, uh, demystifying some of the things that I think we all think about. And, uh, it's just really nice to see the conservation work that you're doing
as long with, you know, with the, the ISSF. Uh, and, uh, I look forward to having you back on the podcast to get more Thank you, Andrew. I'd be happy to. And I really thank you for your Very nice. Thank you. Thank you, Victor, for joining us here on the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. It was great to know that knowledge is power. I think it's so funny to be like, it's so complicated to protect
the ocean. We talked about the complexities with Victor. He says you can't just do like a one by line on a headline and just be like, this is how you protect tuna fisheries. No, it's really difficult. It's complex. There are a lot of complexities from managing different countries' interests, to managing different companies' interests, to managing different companies and different sort of functions within the supply chain, and everything.
But it's been great to see how people have gotten more knowledge on these fisheries, and then they're able to contribute to the decision process. At the beginning, with these RFMOs, there was only tuna fishing boats. Now, there are a lot of different companies that are involved. There is the Marine Stewardship Council that's involved. There's the ISSF that's involved. There's other NGOs
that are involved. And so people who are supporting these NGOs, give them the power and give them the opportunity to be at the table for these decision-making opportunities so that they can have an influence on how tuna fishing is measured. I think it was also interesting how Victor talked about dolphins and tuna fish and how some dolphins have been able to get into tuna fish. But that's only in one fishery or a couple of fisheries on the Pacific East Coast, or the Eastern Pacific, sorry. And
so I think that's interesting to hear. And other tuna fishing, they don't have that problem because the tuna and the dolphins are not associated together. It's just in one particular area, one particular part of the world. I think it's interesting how we saw fishing fleets in the Indian Ocean having 100% coverage of fisheries observers when they only needed 5%. But because the processing companies demand that they have 100%, Now
they do 100%. I think it's just interesting to show the influence that people have within the supply chain. And if your values are good, and you want to be sustainable, and you want to see this fishery happen for a long term, that you can have that. And it doesn't necessarily mean we have to completely shut down a fishery, as we can work
within that and change. Unfortunately, change can be slow and that's where we need to really put more pressure on you know the different suggestions that scientists have and that policymakers have to make sure those policies go through and we get a better managed fishery and a more sustainable fishery. So again Victor thank you so much for joining us I'm going and I want to say I want to thank Taylor who was their communications person who set this all up and
reached out to me at the beginning of the of the summer to get this set up. I want to thank her as well And I want to thank you for listening to this episode. I think it's a really interesting one. I think we're just kind of scratching the surface with this type of work. This is something I've been wanting to do for quite some time. Bring to light these reports, this information, so that you can make better decisions on how you want to protect the ocean. So I think that's really
fun to do. Anyway if you want to leave a comment or have a question regarding this report or regarding this episode you can do so you can leave it on Spotify now they allow comments you can go to YouTube because this video will be on YouTube and of course you can reach out to me on I would love to hear from you. you know, how can I do this? I don't even know. It's so complicated. I don't know where to begin. This is the podcast really they need to be listening to. So send them the link and
let have them listen, subscribe, follow whatever you'd like to do. Um, I think that would be great for me and it'd be great for you. It'd be great for the ocean. So thank you again for listening to this episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lew and have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.