EU considers bluefin tuna protection
Sun Aug 23, 2009 11:10 am
Support is growing in Brussels for a commercial ban on bluefin tuna amid recommendations from policymakers to add the fish – prized by sushi lovers – to a list of endangered species.
The recommendations are included in a draft document prepared by the European Commission’s environment section. This will form the basis for the 27-member European Union’s common position ahead of the next meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
“From a scientific and technical point of view, the criteria for the listing of Atlantic bluefin tuna [as an endangered species] appear to be met,” the draft states.
“There is no doubt about the link between international trade and overexploitation of the species.”
The idea of a moratorium on tuna fishing, to be enforced under Cites, has gained traction in recent years as bluefin stocks have collapsed under heavy demand from Japan, where it is used to prepare the highest grade of sushi.
Several EU members, including France, the UK and the Netherlands, have publicly supported ending – or at least suspending – the fishing of bluefin tuna.
However, others, notably Italy, Spain and Malta, are cool on the idea.
The proposal is also facing resistance within Brussels itself, particularly from the fisheries section, which sets quotas for Europe’s beleaguered fishing fleet and will try to soften the blow for the industry.
Commission officials confirmed the validity of the document yesterday, but stressed it was a draft and likely to change.
The fishing industry is gearing up for a comprehensive lobbying campaign in September, saying regulations adopted recently and endorsed by the EU are stringent enough. “Quotas have already been reduced and will be further reduced every year,” says Mourad Kahoul, president of the European bluefin fishermen’s lobby.
“Time should be given to assess the positive effect of the recovery plan adopted two years ago.”
The bluefin tuna has become a flashpoint in the debate over Europe’s foundering fishing policy. Environmental groups drew headlines recently when they warned that the population of breeding tunas would be wiped out in three years unless fishing was stopped.
Saskia Richartz, EU Oceans policy director at Greenpeace, welcomed the Commission’s thrust. “For the EU, which includes many of the main fishing nations, to recognise that bluefin tuna is endangered is a major milestone in preventing the imminent collapse of this species.”
Any ban would have to be agreed by two-thirds of the Cites convention’s 175 parties at the forum’s next meeting in March in Doha.
The EU’s 27 votes would represent a quarter of those needed to enact a ban.
The assessment made by Brussels already includes concessions to opponents of a ban: the rules would not come in until after the end of the 2010 fishing season, and constraints on tuna fishing would ease once stocks recovered.
Japan, which imports more than 90 per cent of Europe’s bluefin tuna catch, is the most vocal opponent of a ban.
The recommendations are included in a draft document prepared by the European Commission’s environment section. This will form the basis for the 27-member European Union’s common position ahead of the next meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
“From a scientific and technical point of view, the criteria for the listing of Atlantic bluefin tuna [as an endangered species] appear to be met,” the draft states.
“There is no doubt about the link between international trade and overexploitation of the species.”
The idea of a moratorium on tuna fishing, to be enforced under Cites, has gained traction in recent years as bluefin stocks have collapsed under heavy demand from Japan, where it is used to prepare the highest grade of sushi.
Several EU members, including France, the UK and the Netherlands, have publicly supported ending – or at least suspending – the fishing of bluefin tuna.
However, others, notably Italy, Spain and Malta, are cool on the idea.
The proposal is also facing resistance within Brussels itself, particularly from the fisheries section, which sets quotas for Europe’s beleaguered fishing fleet and will try to soften the blow for the industry.
Commission officials confirmed the validity of the document yesterday, but stressed it was a draft and likely to change.
The fishing industry is gearing up for a comprehensive lobbying campaign in September, saying regulations adopted recently and endorsed by the EU are stringent enough. “Quotas have already been reduced and will be further reduced every year,” says Mourad Kahoul, president of the European bluefin fishermen’s lobby.
“Time should be given to assess the positive effect of the recovery plan adopted two years ago.”
The bluefin tuna has become a flashpoint in the debate over Europe’s foundering fishing policy. Environmental groups drew headlines recently when they warned that the population of breeding tunas would be wiped out in three years unless fishing was stopped.
Saskia Richartz, EU Oceans policy director at Greenpeace, welcomed the Commission’s thrust. “For the EU, which includes many of the main fishing nations, to recognise that bluefin tuna is endangered is a major milestone in preventing the imminent collapse of this species.”
Any ban would have to be agreed by two-thirds of the Cites convention’s 175 parties at the forum’s next meeting in March in Doha.
The EU’s 27 votes would represent a quarter of those needed to enact a ban.
The assessment made by Brussels already includes concessions to opponents of a ban: the rules would not come in until after the end of the 2010 fishing season, and constraints on tuna fishing would ease once stocks recovered.
Japan, which imports more than 90 per cent of Europe’s bluefin tuna catch, is the most vocal opponent of a ban.
Re: EU considers bluefin tuna protection
Sun Aug 23, 2009 11:12 am
Like bovine torpedoes, a trapped shoal of bluefin tuna, some two metres long, swirl in ever decreasing circles within the “chamber of death” as an intricate maze of nets closes around them.
The signal is given and the mattanza – slaughter – begins. Two dozen Italian fishermen on longboats haul the final section of nets to the surface. In a foaming frenzy of blood and water, the fish are gaffed and dumped into holds packed with ice, where they are dispatched with a dagger in the heart.
Within 20 minutes it is all over. The fishermen cross themselves, ending a ritual killing every spring that has sustained isolated communities since Arabs more than 1,000 years ago brought their net-trapping skills to catch tuna migrating to southern Italy from the Atlantic.
Towed ashore, the fish are weighed and tagged under the watchful eye of coastguard observers, then quickly gutted and processed in the 355-year-old fishery on the island of Carloforte, off southern Sardinia. Soon they are transported to high-end restaurants in northern Italy.
Carloforte’s fishery is one of three in Italy that still practices the mattanza. There were dozens until huge commercial fishing fleets began to dominate and overfish an industry worth several hundred million euros a year.
Giuliano Greco, whose family has run the fishery for 150 years, wonders what the future has in store for his small operation – which, he stresses, in spite of the gore, is environmentally sustainable. Few other fish – mostly sunfish and one or two swordfish – are caught in the maze, while smaller tuna escape or are released.
The bluefin tuna lies at the centre of a highly complex maze of competing interests: the Japanese market, which buys 90 per cent of Mediterranean tuna and dictates prices; big European fishing companies supplying them; environmentalists who warn they are close to extinction; scientists who lack reliable data; governments under pressure from all sides; and even the hidden hand of the Mafia.
“It is all a big mess,” admits Mr Greco.
He questions whether the system of quotas agreed by Iccat, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (Iccat), can work. He believes up to 90 per cent of Italian producers, as well as other European fishermen, do not declare all their catch, that the “Libyans are impossible to check” and that much fishing continues outside the permissible season from mid-April to June.
Experts say the growing practice of storing caught tuna in sea “ranches” for fattening also elude or distort statistics.
Mr Greco concedes the average weight of his tuna has declined dramatically – according to a Cagliari University study from about 120kg in 1991 to 60kg – but contests the assertion by the World Wildlife Fund that the bluefin tuna reproductive stock will be wiped out within three years.
Waging an aggressive campaign, WWF, backed by Greenpeace, which has its Rainbow Warrior patrolling for illegal fishing, has pushed for the bluefin tuna to be listed under appendix one of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites).
In theory, this would end international trade in what is prized Japanese sushi, but not stop domestic consumption. Since prices in Japan have collapsed – mainly because of the financial crisis and an overhang of frozen stocks – it is not clear how big an impact the ban would have.
Monaco, which has no fishing fleet, will soon formally propose the listing, to be considered by Cites contracting parties in March 2010. Monaco’s restaurants have agreed to stop serving bluefin tuna.
Nicolas Sarkozy, French president, normally supportive of his fishing industry, delighted environmentalists in pledging France’s support for the ban. Germany, the Netherlands and the UK agree.
Doubts remain, however. One adviser to Iccat, who asked not to be named, suspects Mr Sarkozy is playing politics, believing inclusion on Cites will be blocked.
Italy’s position is crucial. It enjoys a 2009 quota of 3,176 tonnes for bluefin tuna out of an EU total of 12,406 tonnes and a Mediterranean total of 22,000 tonnes, shared by countries as far away as Japan and South Korea. Fixed trap fisheries such as Mr Greco’s in Italy have a quota of just 146 tonnes.
Antonio Buonfiglio, Italian under-secretary for fish in the agriculture ministry, has trumped Mr Sarkozy. He told the Financial Times Italy would support a moratorium on bluefin tuna fishing for two or three years, but only if evidence demonstrated that the fish really were endangered.
“Tuna, which are still caught by the million, are not the Siberian tiger or panda,” he added.
Italy, which, like the rest of the EU fleet, has a large over-capacity of boats, plans a 50 per cent reduction of its purse-seiners – which use giant nets to encircle and scoop up shoals – by 2012, from a base of 2008.
Mr Buonfiglio notes the EU has commended Italy for its crackdown on illegal fishing this year. Observers, he said, were on board all purse-seiners. The coastguard says it has seized 65.3 tonnes of illegally fished tuna so far this year, up from 7.9 tonnes in 2008.
The signal is given and the mattanza – slaughter – begins. Two dozen Italian fishermen on longboats haul the final section of nets to the surface. In a foaming frenzy of blood and water, the fish are gaffed and dumped into holds packed with ice, where they are dispatched with a dagger in the heart.
Within 20 minutes it is all over. The fishermen cross themselves, ending a ritual killing every spring that has sustained isolated communities since Arabs more than 1,000 years ago brought their net-trapping skills to catch tuna migrating to southern Italy from the Atlantic.
Towed ashore, the fish are weighed and tagged under the watchful eye of coastguard observers, then quickly gutted and processed in the 355-year-old fishery on the island of Carloforte, off southern Sardinia. Soon they are transported to high-end restaurants in northern Italy.
Carloforte’s fishery is one of three in Italy that still practices the mattanza. There were dozens until huge commercial fishing fleets began to dominate and overfish an industry worth several hundred million euros a year.
Giuliano Greco, whose family has run the fishery for 150 years, wonders what the future has in store for his small operation – which, he stresses, in spite of the gore, is environmentally sustainable. Few other fish – mostly sunfish and one or two swordfish – are caught in the maze, while smaller tuna escape or are released.
The bluefin tuna lies at the centre of a highly complex maze of competing interests: the Japanese market, which buys 90 per cent of Mediterranean tuna and dictates prices; big European fishing companies supplying them; environmentalists who warn they are close to extinction; scientists who lack reliable data; governments under pressure from all sides; and even the hidden hand of the Mafia.
“It is all a big mess,” admits Mr Greco.
He questions whether the system of quotas agreed by Iccat, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (Iccat), can work. He believes up to 90 per cent of Italian producers, as well as other European fishermen, do not declare all their catch, that the “Libyans are impossible to check” and that much fishing continues outside the permissible season from mid-April to June.
Experts say the growing practice of storing caught tuna in sea “ranches” for fattening also elude or distort statistics.
Mr Greco concedes the average weight of his tuna has declined dramatically – according to a Cagliari University study from about 120kg in 1991 to 60kg – but contests the assertion by the World Wildlife Fund that the bluefin tuna reproductive stock will be wiped out within three years.
Waging an aggressive campaign, WWF, backed by Greenpeace, which has its Rainbow Warrior patrolling for illegal fishing, has pushed for the bluefin tuna to be listed under appendix one of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites).
In theory, this would end international trade in what is prized Japanese sushi, but not stop domestic consumption. Since prices in Japan have collapsed – mainly because of the financial crisis and an overhang of frozen stocks – it is not clear how big an impact the ban would have.
Monaco, which has no fishing fleet, will soon formally propose the listing, to be considered by Cites contracting parties in March 2010. Monaco’s restaurants have agreed to stop serving bluefin tuna.
Nicolas Sarkozy, French president, normally supportive of his fishing industry, delighted environmentalists in pledging France’s support for the ban. Germany, the Netherlands and the UK agree.
Doubts remain, however. One adviser to Iccat, who asked not to be named, suspects Mr Sarkozy is playing politics, believing inclusion on Cites will be blocked.
Italy’s position is crucial. It enjoys a 2009 quota of 3,176 tonnes for bluefin tuna out of an EU total of 12,406 tonnes and a Mediterranean total of 22,000 tonnes, shared by countries as far away as Japan and South Korea. Fixed trap fisheries such as Mr Greco’s in Italy have a quota of just 146 tonnes.
Antonio Buonfiglio, Italian under-secretary for fish in the agriculture ministry, has trumped Mr Sarkozy. He told the Financial Times Italy would support a moratorium on bluefin tuna fishing for two or three years, but only if evidence demonstrated that the fish really were endangered.
“Tuna, which are still caught by the million, are not the Siberian tiger or panda,” he added.
Italy, which, like the rest of the EU fleet, has a large over-capacity of boats, plans a 50 per cent reduction of its purse-seiners – which use giant nets to encircle and scoop up shoals – by 2012, from a base of 2008.
Mr Buonfiglio notes the EU has commended Italy for its crackdown on illegal fishing this year. Observers, he said, were on board all purse-seiners. The coastguard says it has seized 65.3 tonnes of illegally fished tuna so far this year, up from 7.9 tonnes in 2008.
Re: EU considers bluefin tuna protection
Sun Aug 23, 2009 12:55 pm
Re: EU considers bluefin tuna protection
Mon Sep 28, 2009 9:39 am
http://www.galwayships.com/gallery/thum ... hp?album=3
Just take a look at these guys - regular visitors to the supermarkets in town. Stocking up - a long way from '' the land of the rising sun'' Why are they here
Just take a look at these guys - regular visitors to the supermarkets in town. Stocking up - a long way from '' the land of the rising sun'' Why are they here
Re: EU considers bluefin tuna protection
Thu Oct 08, 2009 9:21 pm
Just to let ye know that the proposed ban didn't pass due to Mediterranean countries such as Malta, Spain, Italy and Portugal vetoing the ban. It therefore appears that the minorty in Europe has decided the fate of the bluefin tuna - the CFP at it's very best. I'd give it 10 years (if even) before a ban ever comes into place and by that time the last tunny will be lying frozen on a pallet in some freezer warehouse in Japan. It's funny how we have let the ministers of a few nations silence the common sense of scientists and as a result doomed the bluefin tuna forever. Just think of the sports fishery we could have if the stock was protected..........
Re: EU considers bluefin tuna protection
Sat Oct 10, 2009 10:02 pm
well maybe this is where the lisbon treaty comes in,where the veto is gone as soon as its ratified,and a two thirds majority will carry the vote,and i voted no! 
Re: EU considers bluefin tuna protection
Sun Oct 11, 2009 9:49 pm
Lisbon treaty and any other treaty will do nothing for this ... We are talking about politics games and big money, I think they really don't care about the fish ... I have some friends in France who are mad about big game fishing and the king is the tuna ... They told that years ago it was a common catch and offer very good sport, but now they need to go at sea more and more to get one ...
Of course they are not tiger or panda but we need to protect them before it's too late ...
Actually what is happening to the tuna will happen to every species of fish (we have seen this happening with cod, it's happening with bass) ... As soon one is less abundant there is always a chef somewhere to put on the table new species and guess what, everybody is buying some and of course commercial hurry to target them ... ect ... And one day, fish species will only be pictures in a book ...
Of course they are not tiger or panda but we need to protect them before it's too late ...
Actually what is happening to the tuna will happen to every species of fish (we have seen this happening with cod, it's happening with bass) ... As soon one is less abundant there is always a chef somewhere to put on the table new species and guess what, everybody is buying some and of course commercial hurry to target them ... ect ... And one day, fish species will only be pictures in a book ...
Re: EU considers bluefin tuna protection
Mon Oct 12, 2009 3:03 am
Aurelien wrote:Lisbon treaty and any other treaty will do nothing for this ... We are talking about politics games and big money, I think they really don't care about the fish ...
Of course they are not tiger or panda but we need to protect them before it's too late ...
And one day, fish species will only be pictures in a book ...
Unfortunately you happen to be correct. EU politicians now run global fisheries (considering the EU buys fishing rights off desperately poor African and Asian nations with taxpayer money) and every year with increasing pressure from the grossly overvalued, overpowerful and ignorant fishing industry apply for greater and greater quotas even in the face of collapsing fish stocks. ICES (the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea) has recommended a ban on fishing for cod in the North Sea and the Irish Sea, yet fishery ministers continue to push for increase in quotas. The lessons of Newfoundland have not been learned apparently. ICES (which is told to consider setting quotas from a purely biological and ecological point of view) stated that last year TAC for bluefin should have been 15,000 tonnes at the very most but warned that 10,000 tonnes would need to be the quota to allow the stocks to have any chance of rebuilding. ICCAT (the International Committee for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna but also known as the International Conspiracy to Catch All Tuna) set the quota at an unbelievable 29,000 tonnes (lead by EU Irishman John Spencer). When you consider that perhaps up to twice this quota will be caught next year (due to the rampant raping of bluefin stocks by illegal Japanese boats operating off the coast of Ireland and docking in Galway!), the future of the mighty bluefin, perhaps the most impressive fish in the world, looks bleak, and will probably one day end up as just a picture in a book. It's frustrating to think that the bluefin if given the chance could rebound in just approx. 5 years if given the chance (thinnk of the possibilities for charter boats here in Ireland and the boost to local economies) but fishing won't stop until the last one is taken from the Med.
As for not being like tigers or pandas - these mammals are what is termed charasmatic megafauna i.e. basically they are cuddly and people therefore want to conserve them. Unfortunatley you can't apply the same image to the bluefin and therefore (when also combined with the powerful image the fishery industry has and it's apparent 'value' to the economy) the publics knowledge of it rapid demise is virtually non-existant.
If you want to make some easy money, go to the bookies and put money on the bluefin becoming and extinct species by 2020 - unfortunately it's a sure bet
Re: EU considers bluefin tuna protection
Sun Oct 18, 2009 1:18 pm
Test post to debug something, please ignore.