Fiji, Nov. 27 -- The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) has issued a blunt assessment of its 2025 performance, warning that persistent data gaps, weak monitoring and slow progress on key reforms continue to undermine effective management of the world's largest tuna fishery.

In its Twenty-Second Regular Session Annual Report on the Work of the Commission in 2025, the WCPFC says it is still grappling with "additional challenges related to the availability of data to support compliance monitoring, strengthening measures for mitigation of fishing impacts on Non-Target, Associated and Dependent Species (NTADS), and progressing a harvest strategy for South Pacific albacore tuna."

The report says maximising compliance acr...