Fri Jun 23, 2006 10:45 am
STOCKS of tuna in the Mediterranean may be on the point of collapse, the environmental pressure group, Greenpeace, has warned. A month-long voyage of investigation in the Mediterranean bluefin tuna fishing grounds by the Greenpeace vessel, Esperanza, has found a catastrophic shortage of the giant fish.
"The crews of fishing vessels, scientists and our own observations are all now pointing in the same disturbing direction," said Francois Provost of Greenpeace France.
"We spent a week with the French and Spanish fleets around the Balearic Islands. They did not catch a single tuna. It is the same story to the north of Egypt.
"Some fish are being found to the south of Turkey but they are small. A catastrophe is in the making," he said.
Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund and other pressure groups have been warning for years that intensive demand from Japan could rapidly reduce the stocks of Mediterraen bluefin tuna to the same unsustainable levels as their cousins in the Atlantic and the Pacific.
Greenpeace called yesterday for all tuna fishing in the Med to be halted until new, more drastic controls are in place.
There have been reports the Madrid-based International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) is also preparing to call for a drastic reduction in tuna fishing in the Mediterranaean in the next few weeks. (©Independent News Service)