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The State of Tuna Fishing: What You Need to Know · How To Protect The Ocean

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Today's episode is going to be focused on fisheries management. So
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we're going to find out about tuna, folks. It's going to be a really great episode to
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say, hey, look, what's going on with tuna fishing? Should
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we be eating tuna? Should we not be eating tuna? What type of tuna should
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we be eating? How many species are fished? We're gonna find out
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all about that because we have Dr.
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Victor Restrepo, who is from the International
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Seafood Sustainability Foundation, the ISSF. They've
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just released a report called Snapshot of Large-Scale Tuna
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Per Seine Fishing Vessels, or Fleets, that just
0:36
came out in June 2024. I've been working with them to get a podcast episode
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out to talk about sort of the number of vessels that have changed
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you know, how many are out there, where they're from, what country
0:48
they're flying. So you're going to hear all about fishing and just the intricacies of
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fishing and what needs to be monitored and what needs to be done to
0:55
actually get a better fishing overall. And
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Victor is on the podcast to talk about that. We talk a lot
1:02
about things like what he thinks should happen, how surprised he's
1:06
that there hasn't been a really increase in vessels, but also he's kind
1:10
of disappointed there hasn't been a decrease in vessels. It's going to be really cool to
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hear all about tuna fishing. So that's what we're going to do today on today's
1:17
episode. Let's start the show. Hey
1:24
everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm
1:27
your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the
1:30
ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live for
1:34
a better ocean by taking action. And on today's episode,
1:37
just like a lot of our other episodes, knowledge is power. You're
1:41
here to find out how you can protect the ocean. That's why I named the
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podcast the way it's named. And we're going to find out.
1:48
We're going to find out how to protect the ocean when it comes to tuna fishing
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and tuna fisheries in general. Dr. Victor Restrepo is
1:55
on the podcast today. He's been involved in tuna fisheries
1:59
management from 1992 to the present day. He
2:02
knows a ton about the industry. He's seen how
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He has a lot of knowledge and experience within the tuna fishing
2:09
industry and science. kind
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of what his, he sees where the industry needs to
2:28
go to really help and how processing companies
2:32
like tuna processing companies are really at the forefront of
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helping make science part of fisheries management
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more and more and more. So we're going to talk all about that today.
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I'm really, really excited for you to hear this interview.
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And if you want, I'm going to be putting up links to the report. I'm going
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to put links to the organization so that you can get more information on
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the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation. But in the meantime, here
2:58
is the interview with Dr. Restrepo talking about the
3:02
report, Snapshot of Large-Scale Tuna Per Seine Fishing
3:06
Fleets. It's a really long title, but it's
3:09
a great report and it's a great interview. So enjoy, and I
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will talk to you after. Hey, Victor. Welcome to the How to
3:22
Right on. Let's do this. This is going to be a lot of fun. I'm
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really looking forward to this. We're going to be talking about a specific report here
3:30
with you, Victor, that came out in June of this year, of 2024. It's
3:33
called Snapshot of Large-Scale Tuna Per Seine
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Fishing Fleets. This is gonna be a really interesting report, just
3:40
kind of an update on what's happening with the tuna fishing.
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And so we're gonna get an update on number of vessels that are
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there, how much is actually being taken, what kind of conservation measures are there
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that's gonna happen and happening right now. It's gonna be really great.
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I'm really, really excited for it. But before we get into that, Victor, why don't
4:01
Okay, my name is Victor Restrepo. I have a PhD from
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the University of Miami on stock assessment methods
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and I have been involved in tuna science since about
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1991. I have a lot of experience in
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the U.S. government with NOAA at the University of Miami and
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also internationally in the so-called Tuna Regional
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Fishery Management Organizations or RFMOs in short. I've
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been involved with them since 1999 or
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Okay, so you've seen quite a lot of changes over
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your time, you know, during this time. I mean, tuna fishing has
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been, you know, it feels like it's been going up and down. This is
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not me citing any data or anything like that, but it just feels in
4:49
the news, like sometimes there's some tuna fish that are on the brink of extinction, other
4:53
times they're doing well. Can you kind of give us like a little bit
4:56
of a snapshot over your time what you've seen in
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terms of tuna fishing in general? I know there's a lot of species and
5:03
I know that's kind of a loaded question to ask, but there's sort
5:09
Yeah, no, I think that's an excellent question, Andrew. Bluefin
5:14
tuna, there are three species of bluefin tuna in
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23 stocks of major commercial tunas. And they account
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for only 1% of the catch. But
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they account for 99% of the noise. So
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a lot of the words, when you hear the word extinction or
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something like that, it's usually a bluefin tuna stock that
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the media or whoever is talking about. And
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they have been overfished in the past because bluefin tuna in
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the sashimi market is one of the most expensive fishes.
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An individual bluefin could cost $70,000 or $100,000. So
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they have been the subject of illegal fishing and
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very, very high fishing pressure. But I have seen that turn
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around since about 2009. There
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have been major changes in the management of the bluefin tunas
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of the world. I would say that the situation is
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not totally out
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of danger completely, but all of the stocks have
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turned around one way or the other. The
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Interesting. That's really interesting. You've been a
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part of this for quite some time. When you worked for NOAA, Were
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you just working on American species? Because I
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know with NOAA, they tend to work with other countries
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internationally, like in the Pacific, I know that they look at you
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know, with sharks they look at different sort of regions with like RMO,
6:53
RMFOs, RMOs? Sorry, I forgot. RFMOs, they
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look at different RFMOs like in the Pacific. Is
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that the same thing with tuna when
7:06
No, it was just like that, but it was more in the
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Atlantic. So there are five tuna
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or FMOs. There are two in the Pacific, one
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in the Atlantic, one in the Indian Ocean, and one in the Southern Hemisphere.
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And I used to work for the Atlantic one, both in
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the Secretariat and with NOAA as a U.S. scientist that
7:30
Gotcha. And that was just not
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one species of bluefin. It was all the tuna that were involved
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there, right? Right. Absolutely. OK. And from
7:42
a term of fishing gear, can you just explain to
7:46
the audience how tuna are typically fished?
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Yes, the major fishing
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method for all tunas is purse seining. This
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is basically a boat that makes a set around
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a school of tunas and they close the
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bottom of the net, that's the purse, and then they haul it
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out and take the catch. And the
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majority of the catch by porcelainers is
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of so-called tropical tunas. There are three species, skimjack
8:21
tuna, bigeye tuna, and yellowfin tuna. And
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if you like to eat tuna in a can, chances
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are it was caught by porcelaining. On
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a few occasions they are caught by longliners, which are baited hooks,
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but that's really only for albacore tuna. Most
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Okay, okay. Now, with purse seining, from my
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understanding in the past, and again, I'm not so familiar with this
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subject matter, which is why I'm happy to have you on, my
8:55
understanding is that purse seining, in some cases, have allowed
8:59
other animals to get in as bycatch, in particular dolphins. Now,
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when you look at a can, it says dolphin-free. tuna catching.
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Can you just talk a little bit about how that all came to be and
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what's the status of purse seining when it comes to bycatch
9:16
All tuna fishing gears have
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some level of bycatch. Maybe not harpooning or
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something like that, that is very specific, but everything
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else takes bycatch. And in fact, longline fisheries
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take a lot more bycatch than person fisheries do. But
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the mix of species that they take is different. When
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it comes to dolphins, this is really a phenomenon that
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mostly happens in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, where dolphins
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associate with tunas, and the two
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schools kind of mix together. Oh, I see. And there are
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some Persian vessels, not U.S. vessels, you
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know, from some other flags that are
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very good at spotting the dolphins from very far away using helicopters and
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other sites. And they know that if they find dolphins, they'll find tuna.
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So they catch both and they let the dolphins go,
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although some of them die sometimes, and then they
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keep the tuna catch. But that's really only in the
10:21
Eastern Pacific Ocean. It's not a practice that occurs
10:27
OK. It seems as though, you know, when we, you
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know, and again, I hear this from the media a
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lot of the time. So it seems like we talk about, you know, tuna fishing
10:38
and we talk about, you know, over fish stocks. We talk about the whole
10:41
dolphin issue that happens. It seems like a lot of times
10:44
that gets grouped in with all tuna fishing, you know,
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from the people who consume it or people who are
10:51
talking about it because they get it confused with, you know,
10:54
Eastern Pacific fishing where you have, you know, dolphin associations
10:58
and then, you know, just a small percentage of the total
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catch of tuna. is bluefin tuna, and you're just like, hey,
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that's not even that much, and it's very small. Why
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do you think that is? Why do you think it gets so
11:13
confusing when we talk about the communication of
11:19
Well, things are complicated, and one
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of the things that we try to do in ISSF is to explain
11:28
complicated things in ways that are easier to
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understand. But I have to admit that
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I don't think we can ever explain something in one sentence,
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because that's not such a thing. But
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bad news are very easy to say in one sentence. It's
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very difficult to describe something that is
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quite complex in just a few words. But
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if you put it as bad news, it's quite
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easy. So that's the difficulty that we face all of the time. Thank
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goodness we have very, very good communications people working with us.
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So I'm a scientist, I'm a little bit complicated myself. I
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try to simplify things as much as I can, but I
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can only go so far. And then our communications people
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are just magnificent at taking where I leave it
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and taking it to the next step in simplifying it with
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Yeah, I feel, I completely agree with you. I feel when it comes to communication, it
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can be very difficult to sort of separate the
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ifs and the buts from our results as
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scientists. You have these scientists, but then there's always
12:43
a caveat, and there's always something else, and there's always some
12:46
external sort of force coming in to make
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it even more complicated and stuff. So I think it's
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really interesting, and I completely agree with you. It's never an easy byline to
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just put out being like, hey, tuna are doing great, or tuna are not doing
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so great. And so forth so I think that's that's really anything
13:04
with that said we're talking about this report snapshot of large-scale
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tuna purse seine fishing fleets Now this is
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like a fleet. That's that's monitored and a report I
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understand one came out in 2023 in June and this
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one came out in June 2024 so this is an annual report that
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looks at these this type of Commercial
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Yes, we have updated that report 12 times altogether. So
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we started in 2012 or something like that. And
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each year we look at the, well,
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we use different sources of data. One of them is
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the list of vessels that are authorized in every RFMO. But
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we also use other types of information. And
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a lot of changes happen between one year and the next when it
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comes to vessels. They change flags. They change
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names. They change the radio call
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sign. They change many things. They move to other oceans and
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so on. And so we keep track of that. There
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are also some vessels that sink, some that are scrapped, some
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new ones are built, and so on. So our job is to make
14:16
that snapshot around June every year. Okay.
14:21
And what's the reason for vessels, obviously
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vessels that are scrapped and obviously sink, that's dangerous, it's the
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danger of being in the ocean all the time. What
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would be the advantage or the reason for boats changing
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flags or changing countries where they originate from? Is
14:39
it just they get bought over or what's the reasoning for
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I think in most cases it's because they have more
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access to the resources because the particular country that
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they're reflying to has, let's say, a
14:55
quota or a number of fishing days that they
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can use to basically have a
15:02
joint venture with a vessel loader and then reflag the
15:05
vessel. And so it's business convenience, I
15:10
Okay, I got you. And now these are all legally registered
15:15
vessels that you're looking at.
15:19
There are cases of illegal fishing, but this report focuses
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on the ones that you can track, the ones that you know. are
15:25
there and the differences. You say there's changes
15:29
between the number of boats, the
15:33
capacity and all that. So out of this year, let's say compared to
15:36
last year, what were the major differences in the number of
15:42
I don't remember all of the details of
15:46
how, but I think that the numbers didn't change much. But there were
15:49
a lot of changes, like there were additions, and there were deletions, and
15:53
there was reflagging. But overall, they
15:56
stayed around 650 vessels. Now, we're
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talking about very large vessels. We're talking
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about vessels that can carry more
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than 400 tons of tuna in a year trip.
16:10
Usually, they're vessels larger than 55 or
16:14
60 meters long. So, they're not
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that easy to hide. They're not
16:21
that easy to become illegal. Right, of course. They
16:24
are monitored by different means. They are insured. They're
16:28
super expensive vessels. One of these new vessels could cost 30 or
16:35
Wow, okay. And then plus the crew and everything like
16:39
that, like you're looking at. a fairly significant business
16:43
operation happening with these vessels. Okay.
16:47
And then now for the monitoring of, you know, to ensure that they're
16:51
catching the right catch and so forth, are there fisheries observers on these ships?
16:56
On porcinius, in every ocean for
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tropical tuna porcinius, which is what we're talking about in that report, there
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are observers 100% of the time
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on these vessels, except in the Indian Ocean. The Indian
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Ocean only requires 5%. coverage, but
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most of the vessel owners have voluntarily agreed
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to 100% as well, in some cases because the
17:27
Gotcha. So there's like the people who they're selling to require 100% coverage
17:32
for observers. Exactly. Okay. That's good. That's good to hear. That's
17:35
nice that they're going kind of above and beyond what they're supposed to. It's
17:39
nice that other sort of lines within the supply chain
17:43
are demanding that. So that's always nice. So
17:46
what can you tell me about this report in terms of sort
17:50
of results that you've seen, changes you've seen, either from last
17:53
year or that you've noticed that kind of stood out to
17:59
Well, one of the things that I have noticed is
18:03
frustrating because it hasn't changed. It's not so
18:06
much about the change that I'm going to talk about, but about something that hasn't changed,
18:10
and that is that many of the vessels are authorized
18:14
to fish in several RFMOs during the
18:17
same year. They don't necessarily fish in
18:21
several, in two or more RFMOs, but they're authorized to fish
18:24
in two or more of the RFMOs. So it's difficult to
18:30
envisage a system where that fishing capacity could
18:33
be managed globally, because there are no restricted
18:37
vessel records in each of the RFMOs, which is something
18:41
that I find frustrating. And it would be ideal if
18:44
they could control the floodgates, let's say, of vessels
18:48
that could move easily from one ocean to the other, or one ocean
18:53
Because there's a period where you could have a number of vessels in
18:56
one RFMO instead of spreading them out
18:59
over, like restrict them only to certain RFMOs, because
19:03
maybe there's more of a concentration of tuna in that area.
19:09
Yeah, I'm concerned that there
19:13
are too many porcelainers already that
19:16
can catch, I mean, the catch that they make, they could make easily
19:20
with maybe half of the number of vessels that are
19:23
out there. So it's not only an economic inefficiency, it's
19:29
waste, you know, and that overcapacity is always
19:32
a pressure point for fishing harder and fishing harder
19:37
and then requiring more regulations. It's
19:41
just making everything more difficult, and I wish we could manage capacity
19:44
globally in a meaningful way, but having these
19:51
Yeah, agreed. With that said, does
19:59
It depends on the RFMO. Some of them,
20:04
the flag state usually has a number of fishing days assigned
20:07
to them or a quota assigned to them. And then it's that
20:10
country that subdivides that catch quota
20:15
or the number of fishing days into the different vessels that make
20:18
up their fisheries. The systems are
20:22
quite different in all of the oceans. They're perhaps a
20:25
little bit more similar in the Indian and Atlantic oceans, but
20:32
Yeah, it's interesting, too, because if you think about it, if
20:35
one boat has access to a number of different RFMOs, then
20:39
they can go into one, fish their quota, and then go
20:43
back into another and fish their other quota. And then if
20:46
they can go to another, they can continue to fish. which almost
20:53
Yeah, I think it depends a lot on the flag state
20:58
that has to regulate them. And the flag state has to decide if
21:01
they do give them permission or not to move to different
21:05
RFMOs during the same year. If they can manage that
21:10
They will, yeah. But because some vessels
21:14
have access to a number of different ones, Can
21:18
one country that has control over that, or the
21:21
countries that have control over their FMO, can they tell what each
21:29
If they belong to their flag, yes. Otherwise, generally not.
21:38
the catches are only known in the aggregate for
21:43
an entire country. An entire country and fishing
21:46
type. So you might know what the catch by U.S.
21:50
flag pursuers was in the Western Pacific
21:54
last year, but you won't know what each individual
21:59
Right, because they could go over to the different... How
22:03
do we get a regulation or how do we get
22:07
countries to only allow their flagship to,
22:10
you know, catch in one RFMO? How
22:18
I don't think that it necessarily has to happen like that. Okay. But
22:21
I think it has to happen in an agreed management
22:27
situation where all of the countries decide how to go about it collectively.
22:32
So I don't think it's so much something that one individual country
22:35
can accomplish. It's a collective effort. Got
22:39
And are there committees or are there sort
22:44
of collaborations where countries get together to talk about tuna catches?
22:48
Only within an RFMO currently. So that's
22:52
what they do. Basically, the RFMOs have a
22:55
scientific committee structure. And then on top
22:58
of that, they have a political decision-making structure. And
23:02
that's basically all they do. But they cannot
23:06
work between RFMOs at the same time,
23:10
with several RFMOs. They only do it within one, one at a time. That's interesting.
23:14
So it's almost like they're just siloed into these different countries
23:18
in RFMOs. Interesting. OK. What else
23:21
from that report stood out to you as
23:28
Well, I'm surprised that the number of vessels has
23:32
not increased a lot over these
23:35
last 12 years. I mean, it has hovered around 640 to
23:43
670 all of this time. So that's good.
23:47
I wish that they had decreased somehow, but at least
23:54
And what do you think the reasons for that is? I
23:59
mean, it's expensive to have these boats. Is it
24:03
more of there's not enough catch out there, there's not enough interest out
24:06
there? It seems like Tuna's very popular. So what do you think the reason
24:10
why it hasn't ballooned out to above 270? I mean,
24:13
I think I'm looking at numbers here. I just found the numbers from last year was
24:18
650, this year was 652. So not much difference when
24:21
you look at the range that you just mentioned. Why do
24:28
I think it's partly costs. It's partly
24:33
limited resources. I mean, they have quotas in
24:36
place or limits in the number of days
24:40
and so on. So I
24:43
guess I'm not an expert in economics of
24:48
fishing vessels, but I guess they must do the math and
24:51
figure out that it's a tremendous investment for
24:56
that type of activity. There are also regulations in
25:00
place that are not necessarily from the RFMOs, like, for example, ISSF
25:04
has a number of conservation measures, and
25:08
one of them has to do with new fishing capacity,
25:12
like new vessels being constructed without scrapping
25:16
old vessels. So all of the processing companies
25:20
that work with us, they are committed to only source tuna
25:24
from porcelainers, that meets the criteria of
25:28
that conservation measure. So it's not
25:31
only the RFMOs, it's also other
25:34
conservation driven forces from the markets.
25:39
Now, I probably should have asked this right at the beginning, but you do work
25:43
for the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation, and
25:46
it sounds like you guys are connecting the
25:50
tuna fishing industry with the
25:54
right guidance for tuna fishing
25:57
in general or just seafood in general. Can you just talk about the purpose
26:01
of the ISSF and how it works
26:08
That's a long question. But
26:13
basically what we do is everything
26:17
is science-driven at some point. Science
26:21
is where we start. And it has to do
26:24
a lot with the status of the stocks. and, you
26:28
know, what conservation measures we can try
26:32
to use to influence the fishing industry to reduce bycatch,
26:36
to reduce other environmental impacts, to reduce the
26:40
use of fish aggregating devices. These are something
26:44
that porciniers use a lot to attract to us. fish
26:48
aggregated devices that are not biodegradable, for example,
26:52
or that are entangling. So we
26:55
have a number of conservation measures that
26:59
the participating companies that work with us are
27:02
committed to follow. Now the conservation measures are adopted by
27:06
the ISSF board, which
27:10
is composed by a mix of different people, including scientists,
27:15
people from environmental NGOs, people closer to
27:18
the fishing industry, and so on. So it's a good spread of
27:22
people that make those decisions. And then the
27:26
participating companies have to follow those
27:33
OK, OK. And so how do you attract these companies?
27:37
Do you have people within the
27:40
organization that goes out and builds those relationships with the different companies within
27:46
These are processing companies that we're talking about, not fishing companies. Sorry,
27:50
processing companies, yeah. And the universe of processing companies
27:54
is not huge compared to the universe of fishing vessels. Gotcha,
27:58
okay. It's a much smaller universe.
28:03
Basically, I understand that when ISSF was born, I
28:07
wasn't there back in 2008 or 2009, there
28:12
was already a group of processing companies that were very
28:15
much aligned in saying we need the
28:19
RFMOs to pay more attention to the science. We need
28:23
things to be more scientifically sound. So I think that coalition already
28:26
existed back then with a large number
28:31
Yeah, you know, it's it's really interesting. I've been getting involved
28:35
in, you know, people have been coming to me for to share stories, or
28:38
I've seen stories online that I've wanted to cover on. on
28:42
the podcast and it's very interesting when a new issue
28:45
has arisen, you know, that people are discovering and
28:48
they're researching and so forth and they're trying to put,
28:52
you know, something together, trying to have like a call to action together. The
28:56
first thing I look for is like, is there anybody out there that's part of the
28:59
industry that's willing to, you know, stand up and
29:03
have these values where they want to protect whatever they're,
29:06
like in your case, it would be the processors that want to protect the
29:10
fish that they're processing. They want to make sure it's sustainable for the
29:13
years to come. So they have these values where they get together. And as
29:17
you mentioned, before the ISSF was born, they had these kind of committees like,
29:20
we need to do something better. Here comes the ISSF being
29:23
like, hey, we'll help you do that. We'll help you follow the science. We'll help,
29:27
you know, research and do the science on it so that you can make better decisions.
29:32
How important for you as a scientist do you think it is when companies,
29:37
even the processors, have these values that they want
29:40
to be like, we need to follow the science more. How important is that to
29:45
It's very important. I have been involved, like I said,
29:49
with RFMOS for many, many years, usually as
29:52
a scientist, but then also going to the more political decision-making
29:57
meetings. And over time, I have seen a big
30:00
change about who makes
30:04
up the delegations of the different member countries to
30:07
the RFMOs. And when I first started, it
30:11
was largely the fishing industry themselves.
30:16
And the RFMOs are all about flag state responsibilities. So
30:19
they were very directly linked to
30:23
whatever activities were going to be managed. And
30:27
over time, I have seen a lot more involvement from
30:31
the processing sector and even from the marketing sector. And
30:34
now you have, in the RFMOs, you have letters that
30:38
are signed requesting the
30:41
Commission to do something like adopting high-risk control
30:45
rules or other types of management measures that are more
30:48
modern. And these letters
30:52
are signed by 120 or 150 different groups,
30:56
including processors, and fishing associations, and
31:01
environmental NGOs, people from universities. And
31:04
so it's really amazing how the advocacy has
31:11
That's awesome. That's great to hear. Now, obviously, we still have a lot
31:14
of work to do in terms of conserving these wonderful fish
31:18
and just making sure that all stakeholders are
31:22
included and there's a lot more voices at the table. Where
31:27
do you see the industry moving in the future? optimistic
31:33
about tuna fishing in the future based on, you know, sort
31:37
of how things have changed so far and sort of who's involved at
31:40
the decision-making level and who wants to be involved? Are
31:43
you optimistic of the future or do you still think we have a
31:49
Well, the ton of work will never go away. Fisheries
31:53
management is a very tedious thing and it's
31:56
complicated like we were talking about before. But there
32:00
are more players on the table now, before it was all
32:03
the RFMO members and what they could do as flag states.
32:08
Now you have other things, you have other pressure
32:11
points, like the case of ISSF. Or
32:15
you have fisheries that want to be certified by the Maria
32:18
Stewardship Council, for example. That's another
32:22
way of bringing change about. And in fact, the
32:26
Marine Stewardship Council requirements have
32:32
pushed the RFMOs to make a lot of changes so that their
32:36
regulations fit within the MSC system
32:40
in a better way. It's not just the RFMOs that
32:43
are working at it alone now. There's a series of activities ongoing
32:49
And let's be honest, better guidance. You have more people
32:52
at the table. You have a lot more experts at the table that are looking at various
32:56
angles of fisheries management, which we
32:59
know is a big deal. And so it's nice to see that we're
33:02
getting more and more people involved, better guidance
33:06
for different aspects of the industry. And
33:10
so we can move forward in a great way. One thing that I always
33:13
ask, sort of at the end as we talk
33:16
about, you know, large sort of management decisions, is
33:20
how can like, you know, people, I have people in my audience who want to help the ocean,
33:23
right? That's why they come to this, is how to protect the ocean. How
33:28
do you think people, individuals, can get involved within
33:33
the industry here and just kind of help out, you know, is it more
33:36
of supporting the organizations that are involved? Getting more
33:40
awareness involved like what would you recommend like if somebody asked
33:43
you just off the street? How can I help? With tuna fishing
33:50
Well, I would say that it's very important that we
33:53
all become more knowledgeable about what's
33:58
going on, even if the facts are complicated. And
34:03
I would say education is the first thing. Now, if
34:07
the person as a consumer wants to use
34:10
that knowledge to make decisions about what tuna to
34:14
purchase and what tuna not to purchase, for example, that's one
34:17
way of helping out. and hopefully rewarding
34:22
the fisheries that are doing very well their job.
34:26
Yes. And not rewarding the ones that are not such good actors.
34:30
So I think at the consumer level, that's probably the
34:33
best thing. And of course, if they're wealthy, they could
34:40
Absolutely. Absolutely. Victor, this has been, uh, such
34:43
an amazing time. I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule to,
34:47
uh, you know, letting us know, giving us a lot of information about
34:51
the report, but also about tuna fisheries in general, uh,
34:54
demystifying some of the things that I think we all think about. And, uh,
34:57
it's just really nice to see the conservation work that you're doing
35:01
as long with, you know, with the, the ISSF. Uh, and,
35:04
uh, I look forward to having you back on the podcast to get more
35:09
Thank you, Andrew. I'd be happy to. And I really thank you for your
35:15
Very nice. Thank you. Thank you, Victor, for joining us here on the How
35:18
to Protect the Ocean podcast. It was great to know that knowledge is
35:21
power. I think it's so funny
35:26
to be like, it's so complicated to protect
35:29
the ocean. We talked about the complexities with Victor. He
35:33
says you can't just do like a one by line on a headline and
35:37
just be like, this is how you protect tuna fisheries. No, it's really difficult.
35:41
It's complex. There are a lot of complexities from managing
35:44
different countries' interests, to managing different
35:48
companies' interests, to managing different companies and different
35:51
sort of functions within the supply chain, and everything.
35:55
But it's been great to see how people have gotten more knowledge on
35:59
these fisheries, and then they're able to contribute to
36:03
the decision process. At the beginning, with these RFMOs, there
36:07
was only tuna fishing boats. Now, there are a lot of
36:10
different companies that are involved. There is the Marine Stewardship Council
36:13
that's involved. There's the ISSF that's involved. There's other NGOs
36:17
that are involved. And so people who are supporting these NGOs,
36:21
give them the power and give them the opportunity to be at the table for
36:25
these decision-making opportunities so that they can have an
36:29
influence on how tuna fishing is measured.
36:33
I think it was also interesting how Victor talked about dolphins and
36:36
tuna fish and how some dolphins have been able to get into tuna
36:40
fish. But that's only in one fishery or a couple of fisheries on
36:43
the Pacific East Coast, or the Eastern Pacific, sorry. And
36:47
so I think that's interesting to hear. And other tuna
36:51
fishing, they don't have that problem because the tuna and
36:54
the dolphins are not associated together. It's just in one particular area, one
36:57
particular part of the world. I think it's interesting how we
37:01
saw fishing fleets in the Indian Ocean
37:04
having 100% coverage of fisheries
37:08
observers when they only needed 5%. But because the
37:11
processing companies demand that they have 100%, Now
37:15
they do 100%. I think it's just interesting to show the influence that
37:18
people have within the supply chain. And if your values are good, and
37:22
you want to be sustainable, and you want to see this fishery happen
37:25
for a long term, that you can have that. And it doesn't necessarily
37:29
mean we have to completely shut down a fishery, as we can work
37:32
within that and change. Unfortunately, change can be slow and
37:35
that's where we need to really put more pressure on you know the different suggestions
37:40
that scientists have and that policymakers have to make sure
37:43
those policies go through and we get a better managed fishery and
37:47
a more sustainable fishery. So again Victor thank you so
37:50
much for joining us I'm going and I want to say I want to thank Taylor who
37:54
was their communications person who set this all up and
37:57
reached out to me at the beginning of the of the summer to get this set up. I
38:01
want to thank her as well And I want to thank you for listening to this
38:05
episode. I think it's a really interesting one. I think we're just kind of
38:08
scratching the surface with this type of work. This is something I've
38:11
been wanting to do for quite some time. Bring to light
38:15
these reports, this information, so that you can make
38:19
better decisions on how you want to protect the ocean. So I think that's really
38:22
fun to do. Anyway if you want to leave a comment or have
38:26
a question regarding this report or regarding this
38:29
episode you can do so you can leave it on Spotify now they allow comments
38:33
you can go to YouTube because this video will be on YouTube and of
38:36
course you can reach out to me on I would
38:39
love to hear from you. you
38:58
know, how can I do this? I don't even know. It's so complicated. I don't know where to begin. This
39:02
is the podcast really they need to be listening to. So send them the link and
39:05
let have them listen, subscribe, follow whatever you'd like to do. Um,
39:09
I think that would be great for me and it'd be great for you. It'd be great for the ocean. So
39:12
thank you again for listening to this episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast. I'm
39:16
your host, Andrew Lew and have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.