The second joint meeting of tuna RFMOS will be holded in the Kursaal convention center.

Tunas and tuna-like species, such as swordfish, marlins, mackerels and billfishes, are highly migratory fish species. They may be found in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans and their respective adjacent seas. Fish are not bound to country borders. Many fish ‘straddle’ the exclusive economic zone of one or more countries, and a specific part of the high seas. Other fish ‘migrate’ through the EEZs of many different countries, and vast areas of the high seas. Still other fish are found only on the high seas at a particular location and/or specific depths.

The health and sustainability of these fish stocks depend not only on how countries regulate fishing within their own territorial waters, but also on activities outside their borders. Efforts to conserve or protect a fish stock or an ocean ecosystem made by one jurisdiction may be fruitless unless they are met with co-operative actions at the regional and global level. Regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) are the legal entities which bring fishing nations and entities together to accomplish conservation and sustainable management of straddling, highly migratory and high seas discrete stocks.

There are five RFMOs that have responsibility for the management of tunas:

* Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna (CCSBT)
* Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC)
* Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC)
* International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT)
* Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC)

The meeting holds from June 29 until July 3 2009 and there is foreseen the participation of approximately 450 people who were spending an average of three nights in San Sebastian. The meeting is open to participation by any of the following that have official Observer Status or Cooperating non-Member Status in any of the five RFMOs (CCSBT, IATTC, ICCAT, IOTC or WCPFC).

The challenges commonly faced by those RFMOs include establishment of effective and comprehensive stock rebuilding programs, collection of reliable data for stock assessment, restriction of fishing capacity/fishing effort, implementation of effective MCS (monitoring, control and surveillance) measures, striking a balance between the needs of developed and developing states, and effective cooperation among the tuna RFMOs.

The assembled members and cooperating non members of the five tuna RFMOs present at the Joint Meeting of Tuna RFMOs, recognizing the critical need to arrest further stock decline in the case of depleted stocks, maintain and rebuild tuna stocks to sustainable levels and deal effectively with overfishing, overcapacity and IUU fishing activities, jointly commit to take urgent actions to cooperate through tuna RFMOs in accordance with their obligations under international law. While noting that tuna RFMOs have different characteristics, pressures on their individual stocks, and management arrangements, it was agreed that enhanced cooperation among tuna RFMOs on a broad range of issues can increase their effectiveness and efficiency and provide improved management of all tuna stocks.