International Seafood Sustainability Foundation

The Issue

This is an obvious and incredibly important factor of sustainable tuna fisheries. If a stock is being overfished it’s unsustainable. Stocks must be monitored to measure for overfishing and when it’s discovered for any stock, there have to be rules in place to help the stock recover.

What ISSF is Doing

Currently, ISSF maintains updated reports on the biological health of the 19 tuna stocks that support canned, pouched and jarred products. Overall, tuna stocks are relatively healthy. However, yellowfin and bigeye stocks cannot sustain increased growth in fishing and in certain regions, like the Pacific, catch limits and other conservation measures are needed to help unhealthy stocks recover.

What ISSF Wants to Accomplish

ISSF wants a “Green” status for all stocks of skipjack, yellowfin, bigeye and albacore tuna according to ISSF’s “Status of the World Fisheries for Tuna.” That is, stocks determined by the most recent science to be above a level that can produce Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY).

ISSF plans to accomplish this by:

1. The adoption of conservation and management measures for any red stock.
2. The adoption of conservation and management measures for any orange stock that will end overfishing and rebuild the stock to a level above that required to produce MSY
3. The adoption of conservation and management measures for any yellow stock that will rebuild the stock to a level above that required to produce MSY, or prevent the stock from dipping below MSY.