Feature story
- May 15, 2010
The Rainbow Warrior is heading out to confront
one of the most irresponsible and destructive
fishing operations in the world. Mediterranean
bluefin tuna have been exploited to the
brink of extinction - making them the most
visible and tragic example of oceans and
fishery mismanagement.
Scientists have warned
that the fishery will collapse if business
continues as usual. The species must be
allowed time to recover and the Mediterranean
bluefin fishery should be closed immediately.
We will be enforcing the clear scientific
recommendations and calling for an urgently
needed network of Mediterranean marine reserves.
Extinction is forever
The crisis facing our oceans and key species
like the bluefin tuna requires urgent action:
the scientific consensus is that over 80
percent of the species has already been
fished. If current fishing rates continue,
scientists predict that the bluefin could
disappear as a commercial species in just
a few years. Globally, over 90 percent of
large fish like tuna have disappeared from
our oceans, and some scientists warn that
all commercial fisheries could collapse
within decades.
Politics and fishery
management have failed our oceans and set
the bluefin tuna on a one-way path to extinction.
Oliver Knowles, Greenpeace
International oceans campaigner.
As a necessary first step to bluefin tuna
recovery and to restoring our oceans to
health, we are calling for the immediate
closure of the Mediterranean bluefin fishery,
by setting bluefin fishing quotas to zero
until scientists can verify that the species
has recovered.
At the meeting of the
Convention on International Trade in Endangered
Species (CITES) in March, governments failed
to approve a ban on the lucrative trade
in Atlantic bluefin meat. This measure could
have helped avert rapid bluefin tuna extinction.
But short term interests were put ahead
of the long term survival of the species
and the future value of this fish.
Time and tuna are running
out
Urgent action to save our oceans is needed
now from governments and the public. Consumers
should avoid bluefin tuna and governments
need to put healthy oceans ahead of short-term
profits by changing fishing policies and
creating marine reserves.
Earlier this week, our
activists delayed the departure of three
bluefin tuna fishing vessels from the port
of Frontignan, France. The vessels were
among those with the highest quotas in the
French bluefin tuna fishing fleet.
Barely one percent of
the Mediterranean Sea is fully protected
- a far cry from the 20 to 50 percent recommended
by scientists. There is a serious risk that
the Mediterranean will be exploited beyond
its natural ability to replenish and recover,
affecting its health and productivity for
future generations - not just within the
immediate region, but far beyond.
We are campaigning to
establish a global network of marine reserves
- areas of ocean off-limits to fishing,
mining, drilling and other extractive activities-
to cover 40 percent of the world’s oceans,
including the Mediterranean. This is a necessary
step to restoring our oceans and fish stocks
back to health.
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Bluefin’s Mediterranean
holiday romance - Will it last?
Imagine you are an Atlantic
bluefin tuna. You’ve been out at sea most
of the year, in cooler waters, feeding away,
and you know generally getting on with being
a big ol’ fish at the top of your food chain.
Save from the occasional orca or shark scare,
not much to worry about really.
Then spring springs,
and the urge takes you. Forces you don’t
really understand compel you to head back
to warmer waters, and a certain key place,
sacred to you bluefin. For it has to be
just right, the bluefin equivalent of a
romantic dinner and some subdued lighting,
is a sheltered warm sea. But even that’s
not enough. Because of the, er, messy, way
most fish reproduce, they congregate together,
and only release sperm and eggs when the
time and the temperature is right. 23 degrees
Celsius, it’s the perfect temperature for
a bluefin love-in.
Atlantic bluefin, like
many other animals, are very particular
when it comes to getting frisky. And as
anyone who knows anything about saving creatures
who are on the brink of extinction will
tell you, protecting their habitat, and
allowing them to breed successfully is the
key to starting to stop the decline. That’s
as true of bison and pandas as it is of
bluefin. Bluefin, being hugely migratory,
aren’t as easy to breed in captivity as
some other animals. That makes protecting
the areas important to them in the wild
so important. And it’s why I keep banging
on about them.
The best known example
is the seas around the Balearic Islands.
To most of us these islands are a holiday
haven for hordes of European tourists, and
one of the few places you can find somewhere
proudly claiming to serve ‘British’ or ‘German
cuisine’. To the Atlantic bluefin, this
area is vital. When the time and temperature
are right, fertilised eggs hatch into baby
bluefin and this is their nursery. They
will then float in the plankton, and hide
amongst weeds til they are big enough to
hold their own.
So – if you want to
protect bluefin, you should protect the
Balearics (and the Sicilian Channel, and
the Gulf of Mexico too, for starters…).
At the very least you should be protecting
these nursery grounds from large-scale fishing,
targeting the very fish that come here to
breed.
The science is sound.
The rationale clear. It makes sense to anyone
you tell it to - whether they want to save
bluefin as a species, or as a future fishery.
So why hasn’t it happened?
The Balearic bluefin sanctuary (described
here in a Spanish newspaper) has been proposed
and endorsed by a number of NGOs, including
Greenpeace. It has been backed by the regional
government of the Balearics. Heck, it’s
even been supported by Mitsubishi Corporation,
the largest trader in Mediterranean bluefin.
But as yet, the government of Spain (not
known as the best friend to the fish, it’s
true…) hasn’t agreed.
It’s yet another scandal
in a sea full of them. How come it’s okay
for purse-seiners around the Mediterranean
to wait and pounce on an endangered species
just when they come together to breed? Why
are our governments defending the vested
fishing interests instead of the fish?
For an Atlantic bluefin tuna, answering
that natural call to mate has never been
so crucial.
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Bluefin: an endangered
icon
At lengths upwards of
three metres, a bluefin tuna is one of the
giants in the world of fish. It’s about
as long as a small sports car, but it can
accelerate even faster. Its body is a shimmering
example of perfection in hydrodynamics,
so streamlined that the front fins even
tuck into grooves in the body shape to cut
down resistance. And they are warm-blooded,
like you, me, and all the cuddly animals
people care about. As adults, capable of
living up to 30 years, they have little
to fear in the open ocean, with only orcas
and large sharks posing any sort of a threat.
Yet, here they are,
numbers collapsed, facing extinction. It’s
a sorry tail for a magnificent animal. It’s
not surprising that there are historical
accounts of bluefin. Their annual foray
into the Mediterranean was certainly noticed
by the Romans, who apparently caught them
to feed their soldiers.
But up until the 1960s
bluefin tuna fishing was relatively small-scale.
It may seem scandalous to us today, but
most fish were caught for sport, and there
was very limited demand for the meat. In
fact it’s thought that much of the bluefin
caught in this way ended up as trash fish,
and possibly even petfood (an irony clearly
not lost on catfood brand Whiskas).
The problem started
when some bright spark realised that the
best way to capitalise on bluefin’s annual
migration pattern was to target them when
they came together to breed. In particular
the development of purse-seine fisheries
yielded big catches initially, and a dependable
supply.
Of course supply needs
demand. And that demand came mostly from
Japan. Bluefin tuna became an internationally-desirable
commodity. Through the 70s and 80s bluefin
tuna quickly became a staple of Japanese
cuisine, and especially sushi. Quite contrary
to the assertions that bluefin is a traditional
part of Japanese cuisine, it’s a relative
newcomer. But the demand, hype, and cash
involved have come together to spell disaster
for bluefin. The collapse of Atlantic bluefin
(the other species, in the Pacific, or down
south, ain’t faring too well either…) has
been driven by industrial scale fishing,
on a hugely unsustainable scale.
And of course it’s easy
to see why there is so much outrage. We’re
not talking about artisanal fishing here,
or diners who are depending on bluefin as
a source of protein. In fact the purse seining
and its associated ranching have effectively
trampled all over any small-scale local
fisheries that targeted bluefin. A few people
are making a lot of money in driving a species
towards extinction, and our politicians
are apparently too impotent to stop it.
Bluefin tuna. An iconic
fish, that has become a powerful symbol
of all that’s wrong in our oceans.
Tuna in Cannes
Bluefin isn’t normally found in cans, of
course, but last week it showed up at the
prestigious Cannes Film Festival in France.
Ten Greenpeace activists
recreated a bluefin cemetery on the beach,
making a scene that wouldn’t have been out
of place in a tragic horror movie. Tuna
tail tombstones created a macabre sight
on the sand. Greenpeace France also gave
the Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species (CITES) an award for
their failure to agree a trade ban on Atlantic
bluefin tuna in March.
It may seem frivolous,
but with the world’s media collected at
Cannes, a mere stones’ throw from the harbours
where France’s bluefin-plundering purse-seiners
set sail, there was a story to be told.
And of course it’s also why Greenpeace took
action to stop the purse-seiners setting
sail.
2010 is our last, best
hope to save Atlantic bluefin, and nowhere
is that more true than in France. With the
failure of CITES, the pressure now falls
squarely on ICCAT, the body responsible
for ‘managing’ bluefin fisheries in the
Mediterranean and Atlantic. So far, so bad.
But in November ICCAT’s crucial meeting
will be held in Paris, France.
We think we need action
before that, which is why Greenpeace’s flagship,
the Rainbow Warrior, has set sail in the
Mediterranean as the bluefin fishing season
starts.
Will it be, as the legend
spelled out by the French activists said
'Thon Rouge : Fin?' (Bluefin tuna: the end?).
Willie
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Where have all the tuna
gone?
The latest from oceans
campaigner Willie MacKenzie in the Mediterranean.
We’re out here in the middle of the Mediterranean.
But at the moment, the bluefin don’t seem
to be here.
The fishing boats are
here. The tugs and support vessels are here.
The French navy ships monitoring/protecting
the fishery are here… but the fish aren’t.
Perhaps it’s just not
warm enough yet. Perhaps they are looking
in the wrong places. Perhaps the fish are
late.
The worst possible scenario
for everyone is that the fish have gone.
The warnings have been
sounded for years, and us environmentalists
often get scolded for being doom-mongers,
but the fact is, if we keep hunting a species
at an excessive level, at some point there
will be none left.
Now, it’s actually quite
difficult to make a species fully extinct
in the oceans. But we’re a dab hand at making
things commercially extinct (Atlantic salmon?
NW Atlantic cod?). That happens first. By
that time we have often already changed
the species anyway, by taking out all the
big fish, or extirpating it from entire
areas. We change the ecosystem too by industrial-scale
fishing, upsetting the food web and the
balance of species. That usually results
in making it harder for the overfished species
to regain a foothold.
For example, taking
out lots of fish can lead to increases in
jellyfish, or crustaceans. These can then
stop the fish replenishing by snacking on
the eggs and juveniles…
Anyway, Greenpeace is
used to playing the waiting game. ‘Hurry
up and wait’ is an unofficial slogan on
much of the direct actions we do. What is
evident is that the fishermen are ready,
and that time is not on their side.
The Mediterranean bluefin
purse-seine fishery is only open until 15th
June. They have 3 weeks left. The short
season is a result of too much overcapacity,
and too few fish. There’s been a drastic
reduction in recent years from being able
to purse-seine 11 months out of 12, to just
the one. That doesn’t build in a lot of
slack, which is a small mercy for the bluefin.
If I believed in such
things I might suggest that someone had
tipped the bluefin off, and they were biding
their time until June 16th.
We can dream.
And we can wait.
Willie
