Pacific bluefin tuna gets a long-term recovery plan, but other tuna species are left waiting

Pacific bluefin tuna, which fell to just 2.6% of its historic population in 2016, has recovered enough that member nations of the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission, or IATTC, agreed at their annual meeting in Lisbon, held Aug. 31 to Sept. 4, to a long-term harvest strategy allowing modest catch increases with automatic reductions if the population declines again. Fishing fleets caught 3,928 metric tons of Pacific bluefin between January and August 2026.

"You want to have these things in place when times are good so it's there when you need it," said Dave Gershman of the Pew Charitable Trusts. But the commission failed to agree on a similar long-term management framework for yellowfin, skipjack and bigeye tuna, despite describing those stocks as being in "healthy condition." Combined catches of the three species topped 548,000 metric tons over the same eight-month period.

Wetjens Dimmlich of the Global Tuna Alliance said the commission is falling behind other regional fisheries management organizations, or RFMOs: "The market is increasingly concerned that the IATTC is lagging behind other RFMOs in adopting modern, predictable, and science-based management tools," he said, adding that major proposals are often introduced too late in meetings to be properly debated. Proposals on transparency and illegal fishing were also not adopted, and labor conditions for fishing crews weren't discussed at the meeting.

Based on reporting by Francesco De Augustinis for Mongabay. Read the original: https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/pacific-bluefin-tuna-will-get-some-help-as-countries-agree-to-new-harvest-strategy/