Bridges Trade BioRes • Volume 6 • Number 21 • 1st December 2006

Tough Day for Marine Conservationists as Stringent Tuna Quotas Fail

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Wrapping up a 10-day meeting in Dubrovnik, Croatia, ICCAT (the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas) announced a reduction of the annual bluefin tuna fishing quota to 25,500 tonnes by 2010; a mark which is roughly 75 percent of the current quota of 32,000 tonnes. The new quota will apply to the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean, where the vast majority of the world’s tuna are found.

While all of the meeting’s attendees recognised that current bluefin catches are not sustainable, governments and environmental groups were at loggerheads over just how much the quota should be reduced. The US, backed by Canada, Norway, and St. Pierre and Miquelon, agreed with ICCAT scientific assessments, which proposed that Eastern fishing quotas should be halved to 15,000 tonnes to stabilise the population at the level of maximum sustainable yield. The EU, Algeria, Turkey, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, China, Japan and Korea disagreed, supporting and ultimately passing the more lenient 25,500 tonne quota.

Sergi Tudela of the campaign group WWF lambasted the decision, claiming that it “sounds the death knell for bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean”.

French Farm Minister Dominique Bussereau criticised the conservation plan for other reasons, saying the lack of effective enforcement measures would penalise legal fisheries in favour of poachers. Scientists report that widespread illegal fishing a big reason for the precipitous decline of the Eastern tuna population.

Information on tuna fishing is available on a website jointly managed by the tuna Regional Fishery Management Organisations (RFMOs) at http://www.tuna-org.org/.

“Environmentalists Slam EU Over Tuna Catch Deal,” REUTERS, 28 November 2006; “Fishing Nations Split Over Endangered Bluefin Tuna Conservation,” ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE, 27 November 2006.