The Regional Secretary for the Sea, Science and Technology welcomed the recommendation adopted today by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) to limit the use of artificial fish aggregating devices (FAD) per vessel.
 
Gui Menezes pointed out that this was a claim of the Government, which "has warned Brussels of the dangers of intensive fish aggregation technologies." The government official emphasised that these devices "limit the access of tuna shoals Azorean waters ".
 
The decision to limit the use of 500 fish aggregating devices per vessel was taken at the annual ICCAT meeting, which ended today in Vilamoura.
 
In addition to the use of FAD devices, the meeting addressed several topics, such as the tuna quota, the analysis of the reports on tuna stocks, conservation and management measures proposed by ICCAT and the criteria for the definition of fishing opportunities.
 
The Regional Secretary for the Sea stated that the "quotas allocated for tuna species did not suffer any cuts," adding that, over the next year, "fishers will be able to maintain the level of catches for all tuna species of tuna at the level of previous years."
 
The Autonomous Region of the Azores was represented at the annual ICCAT meeting by the Regional Director for Fisheries, a researcher of the Department of Oceanography and Fisheries of the University of the Azores and a representative of the Association of Tuna Producers and Similar Species of the Azores.