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International Journal of Marine Science 2013, Vol.3, No.24, 187-192
http://ijms.sophiapublisher.com
187
Research Article Open Access
Conservation and Management of Tuna Fisheries in the Indian Ocean and
Indian EEZ
N.G.K. Pillai , P. Satheeshkumar
Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, Kochi- Kerala 682 018, India
Corresponding author email: gopalji2@rediffmail.com
International Journal of Marine Science, 2013, Vol.3, No.24 doi: 10.5376/ijms.2013.03.0024
Received: 08 Apr., 2013
Accepted: 27 Apr., 2013
Published: 01 May, 2013
Copyright
©
2013 Pillai and Satheeshkumar, This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article:
Pillai and Satheeshkumar, 2013, Conservation and Management of Tuna Fisheries in the Indian Ocean and Indian EEZ, International Journal of Marine Science,
Vol.3, No.24 187
-
192 (doi: 10.5376/ijms.2013.03.0024)
Abstract
The focus of the study is to explore the recent trend and stock status of Indian Ocean and Indian EEZ, and its
conservation and sustainable management of tuna fishereis. In the Indian Ocean, tuna catches increased rapidly from about 179,959 t
in 1980 to about 832,246 t in 1995. They have continued to increase up to 2005 where the catch reached 1,318,648 t, forming about
26% of the world catch. However, since 2006 onwards there was a decline in tuna catch and in 2010 the catch was only 1,257,908 t.
Tuna production in India continued to increase with fluctuations from 63,633 t during 2001-2005 to an of average 78,400 t during
2006-2010, and in 2010 the catch declined again to only 65,863 t. Tuna is an important but not a well managed fishery in the Indian
Ocean and Indian EEZ. The Indian Ocean stock is currently overfished and has no proper management regulations aimed at with
sustaining the stock. In the present study, sustainable management system is evaluated with information on tuna landings, stock status
and major issues on tuna fishery. To address these major issues, appropriate tuna fishing policies are proposed to help sustainable
development and management of tuna fishery resource in the Indian Ocean.
Keywords
Fisheries; Tuna; IOTC; Resource; Sustainable management; Conservation
Introduction
Tunas are large, oceanic fish and are highly migratory
pelagic species inhabiting tropical and subtropical
waters of the world oceans. Tunas in general are
considered to be opportunistic feeders, with teleost fish,
crabs, squids and shrimps as their major food items.
Tuna and tuna like species are the primary sources for a
number of distant water fishing countries in both the
high seas and Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) of
coastal states. Main fishing gears used are pole and line,
long-line, troll line, purse seine and drift gillnet. Tunas
are the second largest product in the international
seafood trade, with a value of total tuna export trade at
$7,500 million in 2008 ($1,900 million in 1987).
Because of the high demand for tuna and the significant
overcapacity of tuna fishing fleets most of the stocks of
principal tuna species are either optimally or even
overexploited (Pillai, 2010; IOTC, 2011). Leading tuna
catching nations in the Indian Ocean are Japan, Taiwan,
Indonesia, South Korea, Spain and France.
The negative images of farmed animals present great
opportunities for wild caught tuna and tuna products.
Their global production has increased continuously
from less than 0.6 million tones (mt) in 1950 to above
4.5 mt in 2008 (FAO, 2009). Principal market tuna
species are mostly harvested from the Pacific (70.2%),
Indian Ocean (20.4%), Atlantic and the Mediterranean
Sea (9.4%) in 2008. Percentage composition of different
species indicates that the catch was dominated by
skipjack (
Katsuwonus pelamis
)
58% followed by
yellowfin (
Thunnus albacares
) 25%, bigeye (
T. obesus
)
10%, and albacore (
T. alalunga
) 5% and the remaining
by other tunas. Scientific advice on fisheries
management is generally based on the results of the
application of some stock assessment techniques
(Hilborn and Walters, 1992). This paper provides an
overview of the tuna fishery, stock status and major
issues on Indian tuna fishery and recommendations.
It traces the history of scientific advice and
management of tuna, and examines the current
status of tuna stocks and new areas for tuna fisheries
research and developments.
2 Materials and Methods
The database used in the present study is the Indian