The annual meeting of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission wrapped up Thursday without reaching significant commitments from the "fishing powers" to cut bigeye tuna catches.
"The big fishing nations did not make any significant commitments to cut their overfishing of bigeye tuna," said Nanette Malsol, chairwoman of the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA), which manages the world's largest sustainable tuna purse seine fishery.
"It is the big fishing nations that have historically overfished bigeye tuna. It is their longline fishing vessels that are responsible for much of the catch of adult bigeye, tuna which is still fished 40 percent over the sustainable level," she said.