BESTTUNA

Jacuna tuna fish landing. Puerto Princessa, Philippines.  © Jürgen Freund/WWF Canon


Introduction
The Western Pacific Ocean including the Coral Triangle produces around 50% of the 4.3 million tonnes of global annual tuna catch. Oceanic tunas such as yellowfin (Thunnus albacares), bigeye (T. obesus) and skipjack (Katsuwomis pelamis) are caught by a range of fishing methods employed by thousands of small boats in domestic waters, as well as a 275 vessels strong large industrial distant water fleet operating throughout the region. The sustainability of these fisheries is increasingly questioned and draws attention to complex ecological, social and economic trade-offs between the three species and their fisheries. All fishing nations are increasing their effort on currently underexploited stocks of skipjack using purse seiners on Fish Attraction Devices (FADs), which leads to continued pressure on juvenile yellowfin and bigeye tuna – two high valued species as large adults – that are considered overexploited. The problem is also one of equity between domestic and distant water fleets. The latter has access to an estimated 60% of the region’s tuna catch, while juvenile and skipjack fisheries remain important for local food security and economies. There are therefore a series of trade-offs between setting goals for reducing fishing mortality of juvenile yellowfin and bigeye tuna while allowing the skipjack fishery to reach its full potential.
Given the economic importance of the tuna fisheries, sustainable and equitable management is imperative to continued regional development. Ensuring that wealth from tuna fishing accruing to the national economies of the region are reinvested in sustainable management has proven difficult given the high economic stakes of distant water fleets. Innovative arrangements are therefore needed to create incentives for both governments and the private sector to reduce fishing pressure on juvenile yellowfin and bigeye tuna. To this end a series of innovative approaches to stimulate change in tuna fisheries have emerged in the form of market-based governance arrangements. These market-based arrangements include sustainable sourcing policies by brands and retailers, the promotion of sustainable consumption through third-party certification schemes such as the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), and fisher-led stock allocation schemes. Although these arrangements are in various stages of development in the tuna industry (and fisheries more widely) there is little understanding of how these approaches can steer tuna fisheries towards sustainable practices and reduced fishing pressure.

The research program
Recognising the innovative nature of these market-based governance arrangements the BESTTuna programme explores whether and how they provide adequate incentives to adopt sustainable fishing practices and that reduce pressure on overexploited tuna stocks. In doing so the programme will focus on (1) the ecology and fisheries of the three tuna species in their interaction with Fish Aggregating Devices, (2) the composition, behavior and interests of different fishing fleets, (3) the incentive structure and economic and social relations of related market actors and (4) the response of state and intergovernmental fisheries management arrangements to new market-based mechanisms. By addressing these questions the BESTTuna programme will contribute to a wider understanding of how to combine state, market and resource dimensions in the governance of tuna as a complex socio-ecological system. Through this it will assist in formulating innovative incentive-based management arrangements in collaboration with a range of tuna related stakeholders from industry, government, NGO’s and academia from the region. Many of these have been consulted during the proposal development and are part of an active network the research can draw on (societal panel).

The BESTTuna programme will run for five years and is divided into six subprojects:

Subproject 1: two PhDs will investigate habitat choice of juvenile tuna in relation to local ecosystem productivity, and the socio-technical relationship with fishing strategies and tactics related to FADs.

Subproject 2: three PhDs focus on the interaction between state and market-based fisheries governance arrangements from local to international levels. They will analyse and model the capacity of government and inter-governmental scientific and regulatory regimes to adaptively manage tuna fisheries given trade-offs between access rights and market demand for sustainable fishing practices.

Subproject 3: two PhDs analyse the incentive structures for fishers targeting juvenile tuna for domestic and international canned markets, and how they are influenced by ‘upstream’ chain actors in the global canned tuna value chain.

Subproject 4: two PhD's and a Postdoc examine the possibility for novel market-based governance approaches in tuna fisheries. They will review and model the different institutional and financial designs of alternative resource settings and assess the relevance of these designs for tuna fisheries.

Subproject 5: one PhD will explore the cross-cutting issue of new informational challenges across the various governance arrangements.

Subproject 6: finally, the various sub-projects will be brought together and further theorized by a Postdoc drawing on the inter-disciplinary inputs from the other areas of investigation.

The partners

Wageningen University
Program Management and Scientific Co-ordination:
    Environmental Policy Group (ENP)
    Aquaculture and Fisheries Group (AFI)

Other Wageningen Partners:
    Wageningen Institute of Animal Sciences (WIAS)
    Aquaculture and Fisheries Group
    Wageningen Institute of Social Sciences (WASS)
    Business Economics Group
    Environmental and Natural Resource Economics Group (also part of WIMEK)
    Wageningen Institute for Environment and Climate Research (WIMEK)
    Environmental Policy Group
    Aquatic Ecology and Water Quality Management Group

Main Research Partners outside WUR
Bogor University, 
    Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Science Centre for Coastal and marine Resource Studies, Bogor, Indonesia (IPB),
University of the Philippines in the Visayas(UPV), 
    College of Fisheries & Ocean Sciences, Iloilo, Philippines
University of the Philippines in Mindanao (UPM), 
    School of Management. Davao City, Philippines
University of the South Pacific, 
    Faculty of Science Technology and Environment, Suva, Fiji
WWF Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia
WWF Philippines, Philippines

For our extended research network outside WUR, the policy relates network as well as Industry and Policy Partners see the research proposal (attached below).

Specific Research Involvement Environmental Policy Group

The Environmental Policy Group is involved in the two Postdoc integrative research projects as well as the following PhD projects

PhD position 2a:
PhD position on effort allocation of mixed fisheries on tuna’s and small pelagics with juvenile tuna by-catch and their interaction with FAD’s

PhD position 2b:
PhD position on movement and habitat selection of juvenile tuna in relation to FADs and ocean productivity.

PhD position 3a:
PhD position on fisher level decision making in response to retail and brand strategies for sustainable tuna.

PhD position 4a:
PhD position the influence of environmental certification on international cooperation for tuna management in the Western Pacific

PhD position 5a:
PhD position Exploring innovative market mechanisms for incentivised tuna management in the Coral Triangle and Western Pacific

PhD position 5b:
PhD position on bio-economic modelling of financial incentives for tuna fisheries management

PhD position 6:
PhD position investigating information systems and needs for state, value chain and market-based tuna governance


PhD positions

A description of the PhD positions and the application procedure can be found following this link: BESTTuna PhD positions

Further Information

Please contact Simon Bush (simon.bush@wur.nl) or Paul van Zwieten (paul.vanzwieten@wur.nl)