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Under the framework of the Common Oceans, Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ) Tuna Project, the five tuna Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs) launched a subnetwork of the International MCS Network focused on tuna issues which will reunite MCS experts and practitioners involved in tuna fisheries around the world.

The subnetwork was officially launched in the course of an Inception meeting in Vigo, Spain, 27 – 31 March 2017, also attended by the Global Record Coordinator.

The new subnetwork will provide a platform for the exchange of information, lessons and experiences related to compliance and MCS among tuna RFMOs, national MCS officers and with existing networks or groups of countries working on Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing issues.

During the Workshop, the network core group – composed of compliance officers of the tuna RFMOs – were brought together to define the role and scope of the new setup.

The Global Record Coordinator informed the subnetwork on the role and usefulness of the Global Record programme as an international information system purposely created to fight IUU fishing. Synergies that may be created with existing systems such as the CLAV were also explained.