Environmental groups say Gib’s tuna quota ‘disproportionately high’ 

The Environmental Safety Group and the Gibraltar Ornithological and Natural History Society have reiterated their concern over the launch of Gibraltar’s local season for sport fishing of Atlantic bluefin tuna, arguing the quota remains “out of all proportion” to Gibraltar’s size and territorial waters. 

In a joint statement, the two organisations said that although the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas has increased the quota again this year, the allocation for Gibraltar remained disproportionately high when compared to Spain. 

They said Gibraltar’s quota represented 0.38% of Spain’s, while Gibraltar’s population was 0.08% of Spain’s and its territorial waters amounted to 0.03% of Spain’s. 

The groups also pointed to the distinction between recreational and commercial fishing, noting that Spain’s recreational quota accounted for less than 1% of its total ICCAT quota, whereas all bluefin tuna fishing in Gibraltar fell into the recreational category. 

They said the same distinction was clearly made in the UK. 

The groups highlighted new UK rules introduced in 2026 to manage a greatly increased quota and said these measures should be studied and followed in Gibraltar to strengthen control and oversight and to ensure the highest welfare standards to minimise suffering. 

They added that, in both Spain and the UK, recreational licences forbid the sale of any bluefin tuna caught for consumption, with severe penalties in place. 

“The Government should clarify whether this also applies to our local tuna fishing practices and if not, what the justifications are,” the groups said. 

They called for “greater scrutiny and oversight” of the sport to ensure Gibraltar played its part in conserving bluefin tuna during their migration in and out of the Mediterranean. 

While maintaining their opposition to tuna fishing for sport, particularly where it was not accompanied by tag-and-release programmes to study migration and movement, the groups said Gibraltar should at the very least have a smaller quota if the sport was to continue in line with practice elsewhere. 

They warned that the lessons of overfishing risked being forgotten and said any reversal would only come once bluefin tuna numbers declined again. 

The focus, they said, should instead be on sustainable harvesting.