Resources on tuna stocks
You can find news stories, popular articles, opinion pieces and blog posts on tuna stocks on the Tuna stocks news and views page.
Fact sheets
- The Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) has published 4 fact sheets on ways of improving knowledge and managing ecosystems holistically in line with the UN sustainable development goals
- Four kinds of tuna are important to Pacific Island economies, FFA, May 2019
- Implication of climate-driven redistribution of tuna for Pacific Island economies: policy brief, FAME, Pacific Community, 2019
- Tuna fishery report card 2019, FFA
- FFA tuna fishery report cards for earlier years
- A regional roadmap for sustainable Pacific fisheries, FFA
- Tuna stocks: How much tuna is in the region?, WWF Pacific
- Albacore tuna, WWF Pacific
- Skipjack tuna, WWF Pacific
- Yellowfin tuna, WWF Pacific
- Bigeye tuna, WWF Pacific
- Overview of science of stock assessment, FFA and OFMP
- WCPFC and other international management instruments, FFA and OFMP
- Pacific Islands history of management, FFA and OFMP
- Ecosystem approach to fisheries management, FFA and OFMP
- Ecosystem approach to fisheries management, WWF Pacific
- What Pacific Islands are doing to manage tuna stocks, WWF Pacific
- Impact of climate on tuna fisheries, WWF Pacific, May 2013
- Ensuring the sustainability of Pacific tuna: Parties to the Nauru Agreement, WWF Pacific, 2011
- Tuna species caught in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean: skipjack, bigeye, yellowfin and South Pacific albacore, Pacific Community, 2010
Pole-and-line fishing, as here, is one of several ways used to catch tuna in the WCPO. Photo: Francisco Blaha.
Technical papers
- The western and central Pacific tuna fishery: 2020 overview and status of stocks, Pacific Community, December 2021
- Status of the world fisheries for tuna: March 2021, ISSF, technical report 2021-10
- Latest tuna fisheries assessment reports, Pacific Community
- Information and monitoring best practices for tropical tuna purse-seine fisheries relative to MSC standard, ISSF, 2020
- Status of the world fisheries for tuna, ISSF, 2020
- Effective fisheries management instrumental in improving fish stock status, by Ray Hilborn and others, PNAS, January 2020
- Estimates of the number of FADs active and FAD deployments per vessel in the WCPO, by Lauriane Escalle, Stephen Brouwer, Graham Pilling, and the PNA Office, WCPFC Scientific Committee, August 2018
- International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) report, Status of the world fisheries for tuna, also known as the “Status of the stocks” report, is published several times a year. The report provides information on the status of tuna stocks as well as on bycatch and mitigation issues in tuna fisheries. It also reviews programs by regional fisheries management organisations (RFMOs) to manage tuna and related species. There is an interactive tool to visualise certain data from the status report.
- Impact of climate change on Pacific tropical tunas and their fisheries in Pacific Island waters and high seas areas, short paper covering same research as presentation slides below, Conservation International, December 2018
- Impact of climate change on Pacific tropical tunas and their fisheries, presentation slides, WCPFC Scientific Committee, August 2018
- Current knowledge, key uncertainties and future research directions for defining the stock structure of skipjack, yellowfin, bigeye and South Pacific albacore tunas in the Pacific Ocean, Conservation International, November 2018
- Impact of climate change on tropical Pacific tuna and their fisheries in Pacific Islands waters and high seas areas, report of the Scientific Committee of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, July 2018
- Impacts of climate change on fisheries and aquaculture, FAO, 2018
- Bellagio Framework for Sustainable Tuna Fisheries, developed at the Bellagio Conference on Sustainable Tuna Fisheries, May 2010. The Bellagio Framework highlights that international fisheries for tuna, billfish and other highly migratory species are at a critical juncture, and that urgent action is required to control and reduce fishing capacity and to allocate these shared resources in an efficient, effective and equitable manner.
- Pacific Islands Regional Oceanscape Program Environmental and Social Management Framework, International Development Association (?), 2015; involved Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu
- Allocation of rights in international environmental context, February 2011; builds on the Bellagio Framework
- Baseline study and performance indicators for the Pacific Islands Oceanic Fisheries Management Project (OFMP2): [PDF] A report prepared for the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA), by Ian Cartwright (Thalassa Consulting Pty Ltd), February 2017
- Balancing the scales: The experience of the Parties to the Nauru Agreement, Josie Malamahetoa Mata Molesi Tamate, PhD thesis, 2013
- Allocation of property rights in global tuna fisheries, a report that covers the range of ideas presented at the Cordoba Conference, September 2011
- The ecosystem approach to fisheries: issues, terminology, institutional foundations, implementation and outlook, FAO Fisheries technical paper 443, 2003
Technical papers on FADs
- Impact of climate change on Pacific tropical tunas and their fisheries in Pacific Island waters and high seas areas, short paper covering same research as presentation slides above and WCPFC SC technical paper, SPC, December 2018
- Current knowledge, key uncertainties and future research directions for defining the stock structure of skipjack, yellowfin, bigeye and South Pacific albacore tunas in the Pacific Ocean, 63-page paper that is a companion report to the previous paper, Conservation International, November 2018
- Impact of climate change on Pacific tropical tunas and their fisheries, WCPFC Scientific Committee, August 2018
- Efficiency of electronic monitoring on FAD-related activities by supply vessels in the Indian Ocean, ISSF, April 2018. Electronic monitoring (EM) has been shown as an effective monitoring tool for fisheries management. This study tests the potential use of EM to monitor FADs used by supply vessels in a tropical tuna purse seine fishing fleet.
- Use of biodegradable fish aggregating devices in Ghanaian purse seine and pole and line tuna fleets, ISSF, April 2018. This reports describes how fishers worked to design five biodegradable FADs from currently available biodegradable materials available today.
Posters and videos
In Taking stock of our tuna, SPC talks about the importance of the tuna fisheries to the economic development of the Pacific Islands (24.19 mins). The video is also on the Pacific Community website.
Inside out: saving our tuna, video (23.04 mins) about managing tuna populations in the WCPO, produced by United Nations Development Programme, 2014
Tuvalu’s Nikolasi Apinelu talks tuna at OFMP2 project forum, about matching reported and IUU fishing levels, and stock status, for Tuvalu (1.39 mins).
Samoa’s Magele Etuati Ropeti talks tuna at OFMP2 project forum, about assessing whether Samoa is creating a sustainable environment for using tuna (1.28 mins).
WWF’s Bubba Cook talks tuna at OFMP2 project forum, about overexploitation of tuna stocks (2 mins).
Pacifical is a company that was set up by the PNA countries to market tuna globally. In this video, Pacifical talks about its sustainable fishing policy and practice (4.55 mins).