Southern bluefin meeting maps 11 high-risk seabird squares and lifts the 2027 catch

The Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna left Brussels with a seabird map and a higher catch limit, and without new required protections on that map. Mongabay reported Oct. 15, 2026, on the commission’s annual meeting, held Oct. 5–8. The eight-member body, which manages southern bluefin tuna across the Southern Hemisphere, agreed on 13 priority seabird species, all albatrosses already listed under the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels. Most of the 13 have a threatened status on the IUCN list.

Members also marked high-risk areas. A March 2026 working group had offered three map sizes, equal to 11, 20, or 32 squares of 5 degrees latitude by 5 degrees longitude. Brussels chose 11, the smallest option. Mongabay says the model put the greatest concentration of risk in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand. Those squares do not come with new mandatory rules. Australia and New Zealand had asked for tori lines, night setting, and weighted branch lines used together, or hook-shielding devices as a stand-alone option, with a fallback cap of 0.05 birds per 1,000 hooks. The proposal was not adopted. The meeting report, as quoted by Mongabay, says some members needed more time to judge the effect on their fisheries. Further talks are set for a March 2027 intersessional meeting and the next annual meeting. BirdLife International’s Oliver Yates, who attended, said Taiwan led the opposition this year. Japan told Mongabay it had wanted a larger high-risk area and that the Australia–New Zealand paper still needed review. South Korea said it supports the goal and wants progress to be gradual.

On the tuna, Mongabay reports the parties raised the total allowable catch by 3,000 metric tons, to 23,647 metric tons for 2027–2029, following the harvest strategy. The stock is described as still endangered, at about 28 percent of its size before intensive commercial fishing, up from about 5 percent in 2010. Indonesia received temporary catch-related concessions for 2027–2029. Mongabay says no long-term change was made to the country shares, and that the allocation talks were held without NGO observers. A CCSBT and U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization report cited in the article estimates 30,000 seabirds killed each year by longliners in the Southern Hemisphere. BirdLife’s Stephanie Borrelle told Mongabay that figure leaves out Chinese vessels and is a major underestimate, and that there is no separate number for boats targeting southern bluefin because the data are not there.

This is a The Gillnet news desk summary, not a reprint.

Source: Mongabay — Nations at southern bluefin tuna meeting stop short of adopting new seabird protections (Edward Carver, Oct. 15, 2026).