Bluefin Tuna Granted Minimal Catch Reductions
At their annual meeting in Paris this November, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) agreed to decrease by only 600 metric tons the 2011 quota for bluefin tuna catch in the eastern Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. This small decrease from the 2010 quota of 13,500 metric tons brings the new total to 12,900, only a fraction of what tuna conservation groups hoped for, reports www.megafishnet.com with reference to SeaWeb.
ICCAT also agreed to ban the fishing and sale of oceanic whitetip sharks and six types of hammerhead sharks. Tuna fishing fleets frequently catch sharks as bycatch and intentionally. They are then either discarded as waste or their fins are cut off for use in shark-fin soup. Populations of oceanic whitetip shark have declined 99 percent in the Gulf of Mexico and the Mediterranean Sea, while hammerhead numbers also have dropped 99 percent in the Mediterranean.
Representatives from conservation organizations pushing for significantly larger reductions say the limited decrease in the tuna quota is not enough. "Despite sound science to show how threatened these species are, ... Atlantic bluefin tuna once again were denied the protection they desperately need," said Sue Lieberman, director of international policy for the Pew Environment Group.
"This measly quota reduction is insufficient to ensure the recovery of bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean Sea," added Sergi Tudela, head of WWF's Mediterranean fisheries program. Greenpeace ocean campaigner Oliver Knowles called the outcome "a monumental failure of the way governments are supposed to protect our oceans."
Researchers have concluded that during the past 40 years, bluefin tuna numbers have declined by 72 percent in the eastern Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea, and 82 percent in the western Atlantic. In 2006, ICCAT scientists recommended a total catch for the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean of no more than 15,000 metric tons annually, a recommendation that was overruled when the commission adopted a European Union proposal for a limit of 29,500 metric tons, to be reduced to 25,500 metric tons by 2010. Two years later, ICCAT's scientific committee estimated that the 2007 catch had in fact been 61,000 metric tons, more than twice as high as the maximum permitted level and four times higher than the recommended quota. A large part of the reason for this discrepancy was the presence of a sizable illegal catch. A 2010 report by the International Committee of Investigative Journalists found that "rampant fraud, massive overfishing and virtually non-existent government oversight have resulted in the decimation of eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna and the creation of a black market in bluefin that was worth at least $4 billion between 1998 and 2007." According to the report, this black market included more than one of every three bluefin tuna caught.
In the face of continued scientific evidence of the bluefin's decline and in response to continued political pressure for action, ICCAT in 2008 reduced quotas for the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean, but not to levels recommended by scientists. Quotas were set at 22,000 metric tons for 2009, 19.950 metric tons for 2010, and 18,500 metric tons for 2011. Those figures were, in turn, reduced to 13,500 metric tons the following year. But with ICCAT scientists now saying that the continued decline of the population was such that quotas needed to be reduced to between zero and 8,500 metric tons, some governments looked elsewhere for help.
In late 2009, Monaco formally proposed that the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) ban international trade in Atlantic bluefin. However, under intense lobbying from Mediterranean tuna fishing nations and from Japan, the primary bluefin market, the proposal failed at the CITES meeting in Qatar.
