26/07/2005 – About 400
tuna trap fishermen attended the first Tuna
Trap International Seminar in Zahara de los
Atunes, organized by the Tuna Trap Producers
Organization (OPP 51) with the support of
WWF.
The fishermen, who work in four Spanish tuna
traps and seven in Morocco, confirmed in the
Seminar the serious crisis in the tuna trap
sector, with bluefin tuna catches dropping
80 per cent over the last 6 years.
The Seminar’s speakers included Jose Luis
Cort from the Spanish Oceanographic Institute
Santander-Centre and Raúl García,
fisheries officer at WWF-Spain. The event
was introduced by the OPP 51 President, Diego
Crespo and chaired by the Director of the
same organization, Marta Crespo Márquez.
WWF supported the first International Seminar
because it considers tuna traps to be a model
of sustainable fishing that has been operating
in the Mediterranean Sea for the last 3,000
years. Tuna trap activities are victims of
other unsustainable fishing systems that are
currently being used, such as tuna purse seiner
linked to tuna farming industry, that neither
the EU nor the International Commission for
the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT)
have been unable to control.
Tuna traps are a selective, fixed and traditional
fishing gear, that maintain around 500 jobs
in Spain and another 500 in Morocco. The continuous
decline in the catches has forced the OPP
51 to organize this International Seminar,
which aims to share information about the
state of bluefin tuna and demand the administration
and international organizations to establish
urgent measures to avoid bluefin tuna commercial
extinction in Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean.
The Seminar’s participants agreed to ask
ICCAT and Contracting Parties to establish
urgent measures that would help the survival
of bluefin tuna and, therefore, ensure the
future of this millenarian fishery.
The activities include:
- Set a bluefin tuna minimal size in accordance
with its biology (30 kg)
- Set an urgent recovery plan, allocating
strictly scientific quotas instead of political
- Set an on-board observer’s program that
will allow to monitor the real time catches
and therefore close the purse seiner’s fishery
once the overall quota has been reached.
- Improve the Bluefin Tuna Statistical Document
to avoid the illegal transhipments of fish
by the purse seiner fleet.
- Strict Enforcement of the conservation measures.
Diego Crespo, President of OPP 51 commented
“ I am very pleased because the tuna trap
fishermen have been able to reach an agreement
to defend our fishery. Now we have to defend
our position to the EU, Spanish Government
and ICCAT”.
Raúl García, WWF participant
said: “For WWF, it is very satisfactory to
observe how the fishing sector is defending
its future based on the sustainability of
the resource exploitation.”
NOTE FOR EDITORS:
The Spanish tuna traps are established in
Zahara de los Atunes, Barbate, Conil and Tarifa,
mantaining 500 direct jobs. In Morocco there
are 7 tuna traps: Kenitra nº1, Kenitra
nº3, Garifa, Cenizosos, Punta Negra,
Jolot and Príncipe, mantaining another
480 direct jobs.
