Organization, functions, and achievements of the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission

Abstract

This report is a description of the organization, functions, and achievements of the IATTC. It hasbeen prepared to provide, in a convenient format, answers to requests for information concerning theIATTC. It replaces similar, earlier reports (Carroz, 1965; IATTC Spec. Rep., 1 and 5), which are nowlargely outdated. In order to make each section of the report independent of the others, some aspects ofthe IATTC are described in more than one section. For example, work on the early life history of tunasfinanced by the Overseas Fishery Cooperation Foundation of Japan is mentioned in the subsection entitledFinance, the subsection entitled Biology of tunas and billfishes, and the section entitledRELATIONS WITH OTHER ORGANIZATIONS. Due to space constraints, however, it is not possibleto describe the IATTC's activities in detail in this report. Additional information is available in publicationsof the IATTC, listed in Appendix 6, and in its web site, www.iattc.org. Many abbreviations areused in this report. The names of the organizations or the terms are written out the first time they areused, and, for convenience, they are also listed in the Glossary.