The annual meeting of the North Pacific Fisheries Commission (NPFC), a multilateral body that manages most non-tuna fisheries in the region’s international waters, was held March 24-27 in Tokyo.
In a bid to deter illegal fishing, the NPFC’s nine members agreed to require independent observers on ships that transfer fish at sea.
The parties agreed to study the impact of bottom fishing on ocean habitats and to protect two small areas on one seamount. They also increased transparency in the NPFC compliance process and reduced the total allowable catch for two key pelagic species.
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Fishing vessels can often work long periods at sea without coming to port, thanks to the practice of transshipment, in which catches are transferred at sea to carrier ships called reefers. But the practice can also obscure the origins of catch and is often associated with illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
Transshipment, though criticized by many conservationists, is common worldwide, and the North Pacific Ocean is no exception. For species managed by the North Pacific Fisheries Commission (NPFC), a multilateral body that manages most non-tuna fisheries in the region’s international waters, about 85% of the catch is transshipped. Those transshipments will soon be more strictly regulated.
At the NPFC’s annual meeting held March 24-27 in Tokyo, the management body’s nine members established a transshipment observer program for the first time. It will require an independent fisheries monitor on board all active reefers in the NPFC’s vast regulatory area. The parties also passed a set of other amendments to transshipment rules, tightening reporting requirements.
Conservationists hailed the moves. Shuhei Uematsu, a manager at WWF Japan who attended the meeting, told Mongabay that the new observer system was “a major step forward in preventing IUU fishing.”
The NPFC parties — Canada, China, the European Union, Japan, South Korea, Russia, Taiwan, the United States, and Vanuatu — also adopted a number of other rules at the meeting, including on bottom fishing, transparency in the compliance process, and the management of chub mackerel (Scomber japonicus) and Pacific saury (Cololabis saira).
The regulatory area of the North Pacific Fisheries Commission (NPFC) overlaps with those of both the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) and the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC). The WCPFC and IATTC are regional management fisheries organizations that deal primarily with tuna and tuna-like species, while the NPFC manages non-tuna species. Map courtesy of Pew Charitable Trusts.
The regulatory area of the North Pacific Fisheries Commission (NPFC) overlaps with those of both the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) and the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC). The WCPFC and IATTC are regional management fisheries organizations that deal primarily with tuna and tuna-like species, while the NPFC manages non-tuna species. Image courtesy of Pew Charitable Trusts.
Transforming transshipment
The NPFC transshipment observer program will take effect April 1, 2026. It’s designed to gather independently verified transshipment data and improve compliance with conservation and management rules. The observers will collect data on the time, location, type and amount of any transferred species, and whether the fish are fresh or frozen; they’ll also note any cases of noncompliance or cases of misrepresentation on companies’ official transshipment declarations.
The transshipment observer proposal emerged from a series of NPFC sessions over the last year and wasn’t spearheaded by any one country, according to Raiana McKinney, a senior associate on international fisheries at Pew Charitable Trusts, a U.S.-based think tank, who attended the meeting. Echoing WWF’s Uematsu, she told Mongabay it was a “substantial” move by NPFC parties.
The new program confers rights and protections on observers, who can face intimidation and violence at sea, and lays out a protocol in the event an observer is injured or goes missing.
The NPFC is one of about 17 regional management fisheries organizations (RFMOs) across the world, some of which overlap geographically but deal with different fish stocks. Many of them already have transshipment observer programs. The programs have different structures, and some require a higher degree of independence from observers than others, McKinney said.
The observer system was only part of the transshipment changes made at the Tokyo meeting. The NPFC adopted transshipment measures in 2024; this year it adopted a set of amendments that tightened those rules. The new amendments require more precise reporting on the species being transshipped, including nontargeted species caught as bycatch, such as salmon and sharks. They also streamline and expedite the reporting process by mandating the use of an e-reporting tool except in exceptional circumstances. McKinney called the amendments “noteworthy.”
China’s fleet will be the most affected by the tighter transshipment rules, as the overwhelming majority of vessels engaged in the practice in the NPFC regulatory area are Chinese-flagged. Last year, 209 of the 241 offloading vessels in transshipment events in the area were Chinese-flagged, as well as 42 of the 43 receiving vessels, an NPFC report shows. China accounted for 96% of the total transshipped catch.
Frozen tuna are transferred from the a Taiwanese longliner to a Panama-flagged reefer that was based in Tokyo, Japan. The transfer took place in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in 2019. Image © Tommy Trenchard / Greenpeace
A transshipment of frozen tuna in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in 2019. The tuna were transferred from a Taiwanese longliner to a Panama-flagged reefer that was based in Tokyo, Japan, at the time. Image © Tommy Trenchard / Greenpeace.
Tackling trawling
The NPFC parties took an incremental step toward reforming rules governing bottom fishing, a set of techniques in which fishing gear makes contact with and sometimes damages the seafloor. They adopted a plan to update environmental impact assessments of bottom fisheries by December 2026. They also gave protected status to two small areas on the Yuryaku seamount, part of the Emperor Seamount Chain, a richly biodiverse set of underwater mountains stretching 3,000 kilometers (1,900 miles) south from the Aleutian Islands in the northwest Pacific.
Matthew Gianni, co-founder of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition (DSCC), an umbrella group of NGOs, who attended the meeting, told Mongabay that the impact assessments plan was a “positive development” and in keeping with international law. He said the only previous assessments were done in 2008 and were based on “guesswork.” He also said if the new environmental impact assessments are done thoroughly, he’s confident the NPFC won’t allow bottom trawling to continue because of its negative impacts.
The impact assessments will be conducted by scientists from countries that engage in bottom fishing in the NPFC, most notably Japan, which has the one and only vessel that’s actively trawled along the Emperor Seamount Chain in recent years. Japan and South Korea have unused licenses to trawl, so trawling activity could increase if fish stocks improve or there’s an episodic increase in fish. Russia has sent one pot-fishing vessel to the seamount chain in recent years.
Map showing the Emperor Seamount Chain in the northwest Pacific Ocean. Image courtesy of Pew Charitable Trusts.
Map showing the Emperor Seamount Chain in the northwest Pacific Ocean. Image courtesy of Pew Charitable Trusts.
The DSCC and other conservation groups criticized the NPFC for failing to take stronger action on bottom fishing — and especially bottom trawling, which involves dragging heavy gear along the seabed. Last year, the U.S. and Canada brought forth a proposal for a moratorium on bottom trawling in the NPFC until further research could be done, but Japan blocked it.
At an NPFC scientific committee meeting in December, the U.S. made clear it hadn’t changed its position, but the U.S. and Canada didn’t bring forth a proposal for a moratorium to this year’s annual meeting in Tokyo. Instead, the environmental impact assessments plan was adopted — something of a compromise, Gianni said.
The DSCC, Pew and international environmental NGO Greenpeace issued a joint intervention at the meeting to express their disappointment that bottom trawling would be allowed to continue. The conservation groups argued that the practice should be stopped on the Emperor Seamount Chain and on part of the nearby Northwestern Hawaiian Ridge until more research is done.
Gianni said that even setting aside its broader impacts on seabed habitat, bottom trawling shouldn’t be allowed in the area because its two target species are, based on the limited data available, in bad shape, having been heavily fished since the 1960s. These are the North Pacific armorhead (Pentaceros wheeleri) and the splendid alfonsino (Beryx splendens).
The Fisheries Agency of Japan, which led the country’s delegation at the Tokyo meeting, didn’t respond to a request for comment for this article.
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The parties adopted transparency rules for the NPFC compliance process that will allow accredited NGO observers to participate in all compliance meetings and give them access to related documents.
“This decision gives civil society a valuable seat at the table to monitor members’ adherence to regulations and brings NPFC into alignment with best practices on transparency,” McKinney said in an emailed statement. “We commend NPFC for taking this step and encourage other fisheries organizations to do the same.”
The NPFC’s Technical and Compliance Committee deals with cases in which vessels have been accused of violating fishing rules. In the past, NGO observers have been barred from certain meetings. “[T]o have full access is tremendously helpful” in understanding if and when rules are being followed, McKinney told Mongabay, calling the new rules “world leading.”
Pacific saury on sale at a supermarket in Atlanta, Georgia, that caters to Asian-American shoppers. Image by Raiana McKinney.
Pacific saury on sale at a supermarket in Atlanta, Georgia, that caters to Asian-American shoppers. Image courtesy of Raiana McKinney.
For chub mackerel, the parties reduced the total allowable catch (TAC) by 29%. Japan, a major harvester of the species, had in fact proposed reducing the TAC by 50% because catch and spawning stock biomass have declined significantly over the last six to seven years. Uematsu of WWF called it an “emergency” situation. In addition to Japan, China and the EU take part in the NPFC chub mackerel fishery.
Another struggling species, Pacific saury, also saw its TAC reduced. The parties agreed to a 10% reduction, applying a so-called harvest control rule that was adopted for the species in 2024. Uematsu said the move to follow the rule was commendable; RFMOs don’t always agree to follow preset changes in TAC triggered by stock decreases. But he also said the rule should allow for a greater reduction in TAC. Conservationists had unsuccessfully pushed for the ability to lower saury TAC by as much as 40% annually at the 2024 meeting.
In any case, a more comprehensive harvest strategy for Pacific saury, which is traditionally consumed in Japan in the fall, is on track to be adopted in 2027, McKinney said. Saury play a key role in Pacific ecosystems, serving as forage fish for tuna, salmon, sharks and marine mammals.
Banner image: A transshipment of tuna takes place between a smaller fishing vessel a larger reefer vessel in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in 2019. Image © Tommy Trenchard / Greenpeace.
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