Coalition of Legal Toothfish Operators - Supporting sustainable toothfish (Chilean Seabass) fisheries

Welcome to our website, which we hope will provide you with a much improved understanding of the health and sustainability of our Toothfish (Chilean seabass) stocks, along with a greater appreciation of the history of our unique fisheries in the southern oceans, and around the Antarctic continent.

The Coalition of Legal Toothfish Operators (COLTO) was founded in 2003 by legal industry members to eliminate Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) fishing for Toothfish, and to ensure the long term sustainability of Toothfish resources, and the rich and critical biodiversity of the southern oceans.  At that time, IUU catches were double the legal catches of Toothfish, but through the combined efforts of CCAMLR, Flag States, Port States, conservation NGOs and industry, those levels of IUU fishing are now virtually zero, along with seabird bycatch being at near-zero levels.

As of November 2021, our records show that around 60% of the global catches of Toothfish are independently certified as coming from sustainable and well managed fisheries by the Marine Stewardship Council, and are recommended by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program.  This is in addition to a further 3% managed under CCAMLR’s precautionary approach, and another 13% under a Fisheries Improvement Program.  This helps reassure us that the conservation, management and compliance actions taken in recent years have been successful at putting Toothfish fisheries back onto a sustainable basis, and/or firmly into recovery mode.

These measures ensure that you, the public, can be know you’re eating only legally caught toothfish, from sustainably managed fisheries.

If you would like more information, or have any suggestions we can use to further improve our toothfish fisheries, we would be pleased to hear them at [email protected].

Alex Reid
Chairman
Coalition of Legal Toothfish Operators, Inc.

5 November 2021