The overall objective of the ICCAT AOTTP Programme is to contribute to food security and economic growth of the Atlantic coastal states by ensuring sustainable management of tropical tuna resources in the Atlantic Ocean. Specifically it will provide evidence-based scientific advice to developing Atlantic coastal states, and other ICCAT Contracting Parties, for them to adopt appropriate conservation and management measures within the framework of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT). These objectives will be realized by improving the estimation - derived from tag-recapture data - of key parameters for stock assessment, i.e. growth, natural mortality, migrations and stock-structure.

---

The publication of any form of results (e.g. data, scientific papers) during the ICCAT AOTTP programme must follow mandatory rules included in the contract between ICCAT and its funders. The acceptance of any ICCAT-AOTTP contract will automatically imply acceptance of the "Publication Policy and Editorial rules" detailed below:

• 1 Ownership of the results of the Programme (ICCAT AOTTP), including industrial and intellectual property rights, and of the reports and other documents relating to it shall be vested in ICCAT.
• 2 The results of all activities carried out within the programme (ICCAT AOTTP) and all the scientific results obtained shall be presented to the ICCAT-SCRS at the first possible opportunity.
• 3 The scientific results of activities carried out within the Programme (AOTTP) may be published, entirely or in part, in either any scientific journal or in the ICCAT Collective Volume of Scientific Papers, providing they have first been presented to the ICCAT/SCRS.
• 4 Any researchers who wish to publish results in any media (websites, blogs, newspaper articles, scientific journals) shall require prior permission from ICCAT.
  ICCAT, however, will, actively encourage any prospective authors engaged in research activities within the ICCAT AOTTP programme to disseminate their results; particularly in peer-reviewed international scientific journals.
• 5 Any report or article describing results obtained by the ICCAT AOTTP programme must include the following sentence: "This work was carried out under the provision of the ICCAT Atlantic Ocean Tropical Tuna Tagging Programme (AOTTP), funded by the European Union, ICCAT CPCs and Cooperators. The contents do not necessarily reflect the views of ICCAT nor of any of the other funders. This work does not in any way anticipate either ICCAT's or The European Union's future policy in this area"
• 6 All data collected during any ICCAT AOTTP activities shall be used for scientific purposes only, according to the ICCAT policies. Any other use of these data should be specifically authorized by ICCAT

© All ICCAT AOTTP reports are the property of ICCAT. No portion of text, figures, graphs or tables may be reproduced without prior authorization from ICCAT.

---

A Steering Committee has been appointed to guide the implementation of the ICCAT AOTTP programme. It meets regularly to discuss all aspects of the project, and currently comprises the following members:

---

ICCAT AOTTP has an overall budget of 15m Euros to be spent over 5 years. 90% of this is funded by the EU; the other 10% by ICCAT CPCs and cooperators: