09 November 2007 - Antalya,
Turkey — You can tune a piano, but you can't
tuna fish - at least not in the Mediterranean
Sea until stocks recover. We're calling
for the complete closure of the Mediterranean
bluefin tuna fisheries.
We've said "Time and Tuna are Running
Out," in very large letters on a very
large banner, to the International Commission
for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT),
which is meeting in Turkey this week to
decide the fate of Northern bluefin tuna.
They can't miss the message -- the question
is whether they'll act to save bluefin tuna
from commercial extinction.
Known as "Shepherds of the Seas"
the bluefin tuna has been celebrated for
thousands of years, and is world famous
as a symbol of the Med. Bluefin weigh up
to 700 kg, and can reach 3 metres in length.
The Greek philosopher Aristotle was fascinated
by their incredible migrations. The bluefin
is one of the top predators of the Med's
food-chain, crucial to the Med's delicate
ecosystem.
But they are in serious trouble. The Med
bluefin tuna fishery is worth some US$1bn
- in Japan a single tuna can sell for US$
15,000. But there simply aren't enough bluefin
to sustain the world's insatiable appetite.
In 1999, we recorded how Med bluefin stocks
had declined by 80 percent, and it's getting
worse. Rampant over-fishing and pirate fishing
is pushing this precious species to the
brink of extinction.
Luckily, we have the solution - a network
of marine reserves; areas closed to all
extractive uses, such as fishing and mining,
to cover forty percent of the Med. This
means closing the bluefin tuna fishery -
indefinitely, until stocks recover. It may
sound extreme, but without bold action the
fishery has no future whatsoever.
Marine reserves will save the tuna, the
Med's ecosystem, and ultimately the fishing
industry. After all, the fishing industry
has a pretty miserable future if there's
no fish left to, well, fish...
Conservation is a key word in ICCAT's title.
Sadly, most of its 45 member states, including
big fishing nations such as Japan, France,
Spain and Italy, are missing this crucial
point.
Last year ICCAT came up with a "bluefin
tuna recovery" plan so pitiful it makes
a mockery of the term "recovery."
Instead of listening to their own scientific
committee, which set a catch quota (how
much fish you are allowed to take) of 15,000
tonnes. ICCAT's "recovery plan"
virtually doubled this, allowing a quota
of 29,500 tonnes.
The member countries couldn't even stick
to that extremely limited agreement. The
Med has one of the highest rates of illegal
fishing in the world; the bluefin fishery
is completely out of control. In September
the European Commission declared the bluefin
fishery closed until the end of the year
- because EU countries had fished 20,000
tonnes of bluefin - 20 per cent over what
they were allowed for the whole year.
In the last two years, the Greenpeace ships
the Rainbow Warrior and the Esperanza have
documented European, Asian, and North African
fleets illegally fishing in the Med. Just
a few examples include catching Italian
fleets illegally using spotter planes to
search for bluefin, a day after the ICCAT
regulation banning them came into force.
Just after this we found an illegal tuna
shipment being made to Spain. The French
fished 53 per cent above their quota in
2005, in other words every third fish was
illegal. (For more on these scandals, see
our "Pirate Booty Report.")
And what a shared treasure; rich seagrass
meadows and rocky reefs dominate its coastal
zone while an awe-inspiring array of seamounts,
cold seeps and trenches are found on its
seabed. Within these some 10,000 species
live, 9 percent of the world's marine biodiversity
- all this despite the Med representing
less than 1 percent of the word's oceans.
But over-fishing and destructive fishing
is steadily eroding this treasure. A network
of large scale marine reserves will represent
a shift in the balance of human impacts,
from damage and harm to protection and conservation.
