Taiwan Tuna Longline Association Pacific Ocean FIP
Overview
The Taiwan Tuna Longline Association (TTLA) plays a crucial role in supporting over 500 tuna longline member vessels in Taiwan. As the primary agency responsible for registering annual fishing areas for fishers according to Taiwan's fishing regulations, TTLA arranges logistics, facilitates catch reporting, and assists in obtaining fishing licenses. Independent longline vessels have come together and are now working with TTLA and Ocean Outcomes in a new project to improve environmental sustainability and social responsibility to meet international market requirements.
The TTLA Pacific Ocean FIP aims to improve fishery management strategies, environmental oversight, and social responsibility on participating Taiwanese longline tuna fishing vessels, to prepare those vessels for Marine Stewardship Council certification. The FIP targets Pacific Ocean Albacore, Bigeye, and Yellowfin tunas. While the Pacific stock status of these species are currently not considered overfished, they lack robust precautionary harvest strategies and the tools to limit the risk of overfishing. Regional Fishery Management Organizations have been making progress on the development and adoption of such harvest strategies, but have yet to fully implement them.
In addition to reducing environmental impacts, there are also opportunities to improve worker conditions and labor practices in the fisheries through the FIP. These opportunities for environmental and social improvements will be identified in the FIP development process and then addressed through the FIP’s implementation. Potential areas of focus include reducing bycatch, supporting new science-management measures, improving vessel working conditions, and expanding access to materials and trainings for crew.
This FIP is part of a larger effort O2 is pursuing across Northeast Asia to help lead improvement projects and certification in the longline tuna fishing sector.
What We're Doing:
- Undertaking initial fact finding to understand current gaps and shortcomings in fishery management and current fishing practice.
- Working to identify all relevant participants (e.g., producers, supply chain actors, traders, NGOs, scientific experts, and government(s)) that will be involved to some extent in the FIP. This process is important to consider the full range of stakeholders who will be impacted by the project or have a role in addressing both social and environmental challenges in the fishery.
- Conducting an environmental pre-assessment and developing an improvement work plan to address any deficiencies in the longline fleet necessary to achieve the project’s objectives.
- Using social risk assessment (SRA) tools to identify the risks in the fishery as well as to ensure good practices for social issues in seafood.
- Acting as FIP secretariat and NGO expert, including providing advice/support, as useful, to TTLA in the conduct of their responsibilities with regard to wider sustainability issues and tracking project progress transparently on FisheryProgress.org.
Fishery Improvement Project Information:
| FIP Status: | Prospective FIP (tracked fully on FisheryProgress.org) |
| Project Launch: | April 2024 |
| Location: | Pacific Ocean |
| Participants: | Ocean Outcomes, Taiwan Tuna Longline Association |
| Species: | Albacore (Thunnus alalunga), Bigeye (T. obesus), and Yellowfin (T. albacares) |
| Gear Type: | Pelagic Longline |