Bridges Trade BioRes • Volume 10 • Number 11 • 11th June 2010

Bluefin Tuna Season Cut Short as Quotas Met Early

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With quotas met earlier than expected, the European Commission (EC) has slammed the door on the bluefin tuna fishing season for purse seiners. Environmental groups have applauded the EC for strictly enforcing quotas, but argue that the need for early intervention points to the excessive capacity of the European fleet.

“That EU purse seine fleets have in the space of a week caught their whole annual quota of bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean is further proof that these boats are simply not appropriate for this fishery and that the whole operation is entirely unsustainable - not to mention economically unviable,” said WWF’s Sergei Tudela in a press release.

Environmental groups such as WWF and Oceana have long argued that European fisheries subsidies have led to a bloated fishing fleet that is competing over too few resources. “The fact that these high-tech vessels are kept idle in port for more than 50 weeks a year is a total absurdity and shows the boats’ non-compatibility with a fish stock that is heavily depleted and in urgent need of recovery,” Tudela said.

The EC had set aside 15 May to 15 June as an appropriate span of time to allow fisheries to land the designated quota. However, poor weather prevented fishing fleets from participating for the initial 10-14 days. Still, despite this delay, a spokesman for EU Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki announced on 9 June that a ban on purse seiners would be implemented at midnight. The spokesman cited the need to protect “fragile” blufin tuna stocks.

Purse seine fishing vessels use large nets that can be used to encircle an entire school of fish. The nets are equipped with a bottom line that draws the net closed. Purse seiners are responsible for some 70 percent of the bluefin tuna catch.

Under the ban, Spanish, Greek, and French vessels are forbidden to have onboard, put in fattening or breeding farms, tranship, transfer or land bluefin tuna for the rest of the bluefin fishing season. Because the EC does not have the authority, the ban does not apply to non-European purse seiners, which account for approximately half of the bluefin catch, according to WWF. Non-purse seiners are also not affected by the ban.

Last March, several countries attempted to have bluefin tuna added to Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which would have resulted in an automatic trade ban. However, the bid was unsuccessful, leaving the management of the fish in the hands of the Madrid-based International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT).

ICCAT will have a special meeting of the Commission from 17-27 November in Paris, France.

ICTSD Reporting; “EU halts bluefin fishing season early,” THE INDEPENDENT. 10 June 2010; “EU To Ban Bluefin Tuna Fishing From June 10,” REUTERS, 10 June 2010; “EU industrial tuna fishing boats reaching quota in a week is sign of massive overcapacity: WWF,” WWF PRESS RELEASE, 9 June 2010; “Oceana aplauds early closure of bluefin tuna fishery,” OCEANA PRESS RELEASE, 9 June 2010.