| In 1998, the French and Spanish tuna-boat owners associations have volentarily reconducted the Atlantic tuna protection plan (also called moratorium) initiated the previous year. This plan which has become an iccat recommendation for 1999, consists mainly in preventing fishing on floating objects (logs) and in having observers on board tuna purse seiners. Data collected by these observers and landing statistics allow to draw preliminary conclusions on some effects of the protection plan, on the fleets and on the Atlantic tuna stocks. Largely respected, the moratorium has led to a spatial redistribution of the fishing effort, an important reduction of the proportion of sets on logs and a decrease of the landings by one third compared to those realised the... |
