US Calls For Total Ban On Bluefin Tuna Fishing

November 8, 2007

Release from: Charles Clover
Telegraph (UK)

The United States called yesterday for a total ban on catching of endangered bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic after figures showed that rampant overfishing is continuing despite stocks being in a state of collapse.

Fishermen caught nearly twice their legal quota of critically endangered bluefin tuna in European waters this year despite a package of measures by the EU and other nations that were supposed to crack down on overfishing, according to investigators.

Acting to satisfy growing demand from Japan and top restaurants around the world, fishermen caught 56,000 tons of critically endangered bluefin tuna, 26,000 tons more than the quota set by the international body charged with regulating tuna catches in the Mediterranean and North East Atlantic.

The legal quota of 29,500 tons was double that recommended unanimously last year by scientists of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT).

William Hogarth, director of the United States' fisheries service, called on the EU and other members of ICCAT which meets in Antalya, Turkey, this weekend to impose an emergency moratorium on all catches for 3-5 years to save tuna stocks from commercial extinction.

He said: "Strong action must be taken immediately to prevent the collapse of the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean stock of bluefin tuna. Given continued blatant violations of catch limits, closed areas, and reporting requirements, a moratorium is the best hope if we want to avert disaster for eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna.

"The western stock of bluefin tuna intermixes with the much larger eastern stock, and there is real concern about the impact of uncontrolled eastern bluefin catches on western Atlantic bluefin tuna caught by our fishermen."

The estimates of rampant illegal catches, made by investigators from the Spanish consultancy ATRT, show that the EU and ICCAT are presiding over some of the highest rates of illegal fishing in the world.

The countries which exceeded their quotas by the largest amount were all from the EU, which has half the total quota awarded by ICCAT.

Raul Garcia of WWF said it was "a shocking state of affairs" that ICCAT countries were incapable of enforcing the regulations in force in the Mediterranean and Atlantic.

"There is only one solution to the imminent risk of collapse faced by the Mediterranean bluefin tuna fishery, and that is the immediate closure of the fishery - until the population shows some sign of recovery, and until a management plan is put in place based on scientific recommendations."

Last year catches of bluefin tuna by countries that are members of ICCAT were 58,000 tons, while the legal quota was 32,000 tons. Italy, Japan and France were the most over-quota.

A "recovery plan" was agreed at a meeting of ICCAT in Dubrovnik at which United States officials said there was clear evidence of organised criminal activity among the pro-fishing delegations.

A white lily, a funeral flower taken to be a Mafia death threat, was found placed on the table occupied by one of the environmental organisations.

The Spanish consultants' report say that the value of bluefin produced annually by live capture and "farms" or ranches - which are stocked by rounded-up wild tunas - is £1.8 billion, making bluefin one of the most valuable foodstuffs in the world.

Investigators describe both the fleet of catching boats and the ranches and catching boats that work for them as "clearly oversized and overcapitalised" and increasingly desperate now stocks are declining rapidly.

It says that the ranching and fattening capacity of current moored tuna cages is 58,000 tons, according to official ICCAT calculations. This represents more than the official quota for both farmed and wild fish.

The report adds that the scale of such looting must have been known to the EU's Fisheries Commissioner, Joe Borg, who represented Europe in negotiations last year and presided over the approval of the recovery plan by EU governments in June this year, six weeks late.

Bluefin tuna from the Mediterranean fishery remains on the menu of dozens of restaurants in London. In May Gordon Ramsay, the chef, said he would remove bluefin from menus at his eponymous restaurants in Chelsea and at Claridge's and replace it with the sustainable yellowfin variety because of overfishing.

At the London Sushi Awards, two weeks ago, two of the seven chefs from some of the world's most prestigious restaurants had bluefin tuna in their competition dishes which were served to hundreds of guests.

A report by Greenpeace to be published this week says that there are major discrepancies between the number of Japanese and Korean vessels fishing for tuna of all species in the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean and the vessels that are on ICCAT's legal register.

Sebastian Losada of Greenpeace, based in Spain, said: "ICCAT members, which include Britain, have a responsibility to do something in Antalya next week to avoid the commercial extinction of bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean.

"There is a mid-term review of the current management plan scheduled for 2008 but the species cannot afford yet another year of unsustainable catches.

"If our Governments are not able to put in place a truly credible recovery plan for bluefin tuna, the fishery has to be closed as we cannot afford losing such a key species.

"To date they have shown that they are not in a position to manage this fishery and get the fishing industry to comply with the rules they have agreed. They should recognise it next week in Antalya and act accordingly."

Britain complained to the European Commission earlier this year saying that Italy, France and Spain were getting away with overfishing bluefin tuna without being penalised, while British fishermen who caught too many cod and plaice were penalised with a reduction in quota under EU rules.

Fisheries Minister Jonathan Shaw said: "The UK has been highly critical of more overfishing of bluefin tuna, a threatened species.

"I have raised this issue personally with Europe's Fisheries Commissioner. I was given assurances that firm action will be taken to ensure this cannot happen again and to require lower quotas next year for those EU member states responsible."