Recommendation by ICCAT Amending the Recommendation 19-04 Amending Recommendation 18-02 Establishing a Multi-Annual Management Plan for Bluefin Tuna in the Eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean (Rec. 21-08).

This Recommendation of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas requires the Contracting Parties and Cooperating non-Contracting Parties, Entities or Fishing Entities (CPCs) whose vessels have been actively fishing for bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) in the eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean to implement a management plan for bluefin tuna in that geographic area starting in 2019 with the goal of maintaining the biomass to the provided limits. Each CPC shall take the necessary measures to ensure that the fishing effort of its catching vessels and its traps are commensurate with the bluefin tuna fishing opportunities available to that CPC in the eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean, including by establishing individual quotas for its catching vessels over 24 m as in the list referred in this Recommendation. The text further provides for the total allowable catches (TACs), inclusive of dead discards, for 2022. The Recommendation is designed in 6 Parts as follow: General provisions and objectives (I); Management measures (II); Technical measures (III); Control measures (IV); ICCAT Scheme of Joint International Inspection (V); and Final provisions (VI). Part four of the Recommendation on control measures refers to records of vessels, traps and farms; catches and transhipments; observer programmes; transfers of live fish; caging; harvesting; control activities in farms after caging; Vessel Monitoring System (VMS); enforcement and market measures. The Recommendation has 14 Annexes.