ISSF Pushes Collaborative Strategies to Strengthen Sustainable Tuna Fisheries

Twenty-four seafood companies achieved a 99.6% conformance rate across 33 ISSF conservation measures during the 2024 audit period, according to ISSF's latest Annual Conservation Measures & ProActive Vessel Register Compliance Report. That figure edges past the 99.1% conformance rate reported in November 2024 and forms the statistical backbone of a broader push ISSF outlined in a March 12, 2026 feature on collaborative strategies to strengthen sustainable tuna fisheries worldwide.

The 33 measures assessed span some of the most consequential pressure points in commercial tuna fishing: traceability, bycatch mitigation, and the prevention of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. ISSF's Status of the Stocks report underpins the optimism here, with 97% of the global commercial tuna catch now coming from stocks at healthy abundance levels, a figure the organization credits to decades of science-based fisheries management and coordinated action across governments, scientists, fishers, and seafood companies.

The compliance results don't exist in isolation. Last October, ISSF joined the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP) and Global Fishing Watch (GFW) in announcing a data integration initiative aimed at giving tuna buyers a sharper, more complete picture of their supply chains. Announced October 1, 2025, and made possible through grant funding from the Walmart Foundation, the collaboration links SFP's FishSource and Seafood Metrics platforms with ISSF's Proactive Vessel Register (PVR) and Vessels on Other Sustainability Initiatives (VOSI), alongside GFW's Vessel Viewer and Marine Manager tools. The combined databases are designed to capture sustainability indicators that go beyond stock health and management practices, extending into market-relevant compliance and vessel-level risk.

Charles Kilgour, Director of Program Initiatives at Global Fishing Watch, framed the practical value of that integration directly: "We're excited to contribute to a collaboration that empowers tuna buyers with the information they need to make responsible sourcing decisions. By integrating key data sources into a platform already familiar with industry, we're helping build a broader and more inclusive understanding of vessel-level activity, including data gaps and key risk indicators. This enables industry to better target risk mitigation efforts and strengthens accountability and cooperation between government and industry, in a way that is driving a shift to more sustainable and transparent policies."

On the organizational side, ISSF has been building the case for industry participation through the International Seafood Sustainability Association (ISSA), which supports ISSF's work and provides tuna companies a formal pathway to collaborate alongside scientists, environmental organizations, and other stakeholders. Retailer and buyer policies are increasingly referencing ISSF participation and the use of these transparency tools as part of their sustainability expectations, a market signal that gives the compliance numbers commercial weight beyond the environmental argument.

ISSF President Susan Jackson addressed the longer arc of this work in a January 23 blog post, reflecting on progress made by scientists, fishery managers, the seafood industry, and the NGO community to advance science-driven management and strengthen international cooperation. Jackson also pointed to a growing shared recognition that long-term sustainability is not only an environmental imperative but essential to resilient seafood supply chains, coastal communities, and fishing livelihoods.

Notably, ISSF has also adopted a conservation measure on social audits for land-based tuna production facilities, an expansion of its accountability framework beyond the vessels themselves and into the processing infrastructure that feeds the supply chain.