Celebrating World Tuna Day: Securing the Future of Tuna in the South-Western Indian Ocean – Sustainability, Value Creation and Ocean Stewardship
Today, we join the global community in celebrating World Tuna Day under the theme: “Securing the Future of Tuna in the South-Western Indian Ocean: Sustainability, Value Creation and Ocean Stewardship.”
For Seychelles, this theme reflects our national circumstance and continues to set our direction of travel through policy, governance and management. Port Victoria remains the hub of the purse seine tuna fishery in the Indian Ocean, a fishery that has developed over four decades in partnership with Seychelles. The tuna fishery continues to generate significant value for our economy and supports a diverse range of livelihoods and opportunities for local businesses. Maintaining that position requires our continued focus on managing for sustainability, promoting development for value creation, and taking seriously our responsibilities for ocean stewardship.
The stewardship of our ocean wealth requires a sustained effort at national and regional levels. However, in spite of the challenges, the management of tuna fisheries is improving and resulting in successful outcomes. Today, we can celebrate the fact that our vitally important tuna economy is benefiting from a return to sustainability. An impressive 97% of global tuna catch now comes from stocks at healthy abundance levels. In the Indian Ocean, the two main species, skipjack and yellowfin tuna, are being fished at sustainable levels, and bigeye tuna is recovering from a period of overfishing. Those successes may provide a foundation for wealth creation and growth, but we must recognise that the constraints posed by external factors may result in losses for our economy on scales that are difficult to quantify.
Recent global events, notably the pandemic and the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, have highlighted the importance of resilience in sectors that underpin Seychelles’ economy. During periods when tourism declines, the tuna industry continues to exhibit a high degree of resilience and adaptability, demonstrating its strategic importance to national stability. While concerns remain over the impacts of longer-term high fuel costs on the fishery, we are thankful that tuna landings and transhipment in Port Victoria are, as yet, relatively unaffected by the situation in the Middle East.
Of perhaps greater concern to the tuna economy in the medium-term is the developing El Nino event in the Pacific. If it turns into a strong event, or ‘super El Nino’ as scientists are warning, the potential impacts to Seychelles’ economy in late 2026 and early 2027 may be severe, with pervasive changes to tuna behaviour, fishery performance and activity in Port Victoria typical of such events (e.g. 1998). Compounding of a strong El Nino with higher fuel prices would be particularly damaging to the sector.
If the sustainable management and stewardship of the tuna fishery remain within national or regional control through the various governance mechanisms that apply, Seychelles can only mitigate the impacts of external shocks through diversifying and enhancing tuna value chains. Not all tuna fisheries are impacted in the same way by climate anomalies and some, such a deep-set longline fishing, may even benefit from the environmental changes that characterise El Nino events. Resilience will therefore be strengthened if local investors secure partnerships with suppliers of higher-grade raw material for processing in Port Victoria. Increased cold storage capacity may also provide a buffer for factories if disruptions to landings are short-term. Consequently, value creation should not only be viewed as a means to improve the economic benefits from our tuna resources, but as an opportunity to build resilience to external shocks and change.
Sustainability, value creation and ocean stewardship are therefore inextricably linked in securing the future for Seychelles’ tuna economy. Understanding how they interact will be critical in policy-setting for the sector. World Tuna Day, and the Seychelles Tuna Conference being held to mark the occasion, provide an opportunity to take stock and refocus our thinking on how to build a more resilient tuna economy that can continue to create value from a foundation of sustainable management and responsible ocean stewardship.
“Happy World Tuna Day.”