November 19, 2024 — The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) has adopted a management procedure for Atlantic swordfish, but another proposal to strengthen the commission’s ban on shark finning was derailed by Japan and China.
ICCAT held its annual meeting from 11 to 18 November and had already completed a management strategy evaluation for North Atlantic swordfish. NGOs like The Pew Charitable Trusts pushed for the ICCAT – a regional fishery management organization (RFMO) – to adopt the strategy to move away from annual quota negotiations toward an automated system that makes management decisions less political and more science-based.