SPC, New Caledonia - 9-12 October 2018

Tuna are the focus of significant fisheries in the Pacific Ocean, with landings of four species (skipjack tuna, yellowfin tuna, bigeye tuna and albacore tuna) constituting approximately 70% of the global tuna catch. 

Stock assessments for skipjack, yellowfin, bigeye and South Pacific albacore tunas in the Pacific Ocean currently assume eastern and western stocks, a split that reflects historical development of fishery management in the region rather than biological considerations.

There is widespread agreement that uncertainties surrounding the stock structure of the four main target species could have important impacts on population dynamics models used to assess stock status and inform management options.

The workshop will identify a research agenda for delineating the spatial structure of tuna stocks that is fit for incorporation into stock assessments and regional tuna management arrangements and which will inform the testing of harvest strategies for robustness to uncertainty in stock spatial structure.

The identified future research programme would directly help to reduce uncertainty in stock assessment and ecosystem modelling science. Increasingly the research should provide for independent verification of where fish were caught, and therefore potentially provide a means of verification for chain-of-custody in certified fisheries. The venue is SPC, Noumea, New Caledonia. 

The workshop is made possible through the support of Conservation International, as part of the GEF-funded, World Bank-implemented Ocean Partnerships for Sustainable Fisheries and Biodiversity Conservation (OPP), a sub-project of the Common Oceans ABNJ Program led by UN-FAO.

Prior to the workshop knowledge on the spatial structure of skipjack, yellowfin and bigeye Pacific tuna stocks and stock structure analytical methods will be compiled into a background paper or series of papers to support the workshop. The workshop itself is intended to assess:

• How best to apply modern genetic technologies to identify the stock structure of these fish including developing a sampling design to address these questions;
• Assess how best to incorporate the results into future stock assessment and ecosystem modelling, and inform the testing of candidate harvest strategies

See all related documents: Identifying the Spatial Structure of Tropical Pacific Tuna Stocks Workshop