Europe moves to support worldwide ban on tuna fishing

Northern bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) Image: OpenCage (CC)

The European Commission asked its member states to support a worldwide ban on the tuna trade in a move designed primarily to curb tuna fishing in the Mediterranean Sea, where the species is said to be in risk of total extinction.

With one of the most densely populated coastlines on Earth, the Mediterranean Sea and its resources have been exploited for well over a thousand years.

The Mediterranean is home to 750 different varieties of fish, and they constitute 9 per cent of the world’s marine species.

One of those species is the Northern (sometimes called Pacific, or Giant) bluefin tuna, a warm-blooded species which has seen its stocks depleted over the years to what are now generally considered to be dangerously low levels.

The estimated value of the annual tuna catch in the Mediterranean is estimated to be around £400 million, and this lucrative business has now been developed to the point where there are now over 40 offshore tuna farms in the Mediterranean.

Those farms administer the 30,000 tonnes of tuna which are caught each summer in massive dragnet hunts. Those tuna are then well fed until they reach an ‘ideal’ weight of 250kg, at which time they are killed and taken to the mainland to be processed and distributed worldwide.

Illegal bluefin tuna fishing in the Mediterranean Sea, estimated to represent around 20,000 tonnes a year, has become a widely-used method of avoiding tuna catch quotas, and many illegal dragnet operations use smaller guage nets which catch young tuna, thus seriously reducing the species’ capacity to reproduce.

The result is that the Mediterranean tuna industry is on the verge of collapse.

Some estimates say that if present over-fishing levels are maintained the Northern bluefin tuna may disappear from the Mediterranean in a few years. Other estimates say that it is too late and that the Northern bluefin population in the Mediterranean is already doomed.

Efforts have been made to combat the problem, notably by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), which is based in Madrid.

The ICCAT has made such little impact on the issue however, that some tuna conservation groups have dubbed it the “International Conspiracy to Catch All Tunas” and a recent review of the ICCAT’s activities by a group of independent fishery experts said in its report that the ICCAT’s management of the Northern bluefin issue was “widely regarded as an international disgrace”.

It is in this context that the European Union finally decided today to issue a formal statement which asks all EU member countries to support a worldwide ban on Northern tuna trade. A ban of this nature would de facto mean the virtual end of the tuna fishing industry. The most affected country would be Japan, the world’s principal tuna consumer.

“This decision represents an important step in favour of the protection of the Northern Bluefin tuna” declared European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas in an official communiqué. He went on to say that “We must act upon the most reliable scientific observations available, in which scientists say that urgent action is necessary if we are to save one of the most emblematic of all sea creatures.”

More precisely, the UE Executive has decided to follow a recommendation from Monaco that Northern bluefin tuna fishing, which is primarily done in the Mediterranean, be banned worldwide in accordance with Annexe 1 of the CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, also known as the Washington Convention. This annexe allows for the interdiction of trade in, and thus the fishing of, endangered species, at least on a temporary basis.

“The European Commission shares many of Monaco’s points of view on the state of tuna stocks and has accepted that Europe must support Monaco’s proposition at the next CITES Assembly meeting, to be held in March 2010” said Dimas.

In a more conciliatory tone however, the EU also indicated that it would change its stance if the tuna fishing countries themselves take immediate and drastic measures to protect tuna stocks and respect quotas.

The next ICCAT meeting is scheduled for November, and, in an anticipatory measure, the EU will submit its proposals to a vote during an EU meeting on September 21. The proposals are largely expected to be adopted by the majority of EU members.

A statement issued by the Euro-Mediterranean Professional Tuna Fisheries called the EU’s decision “nonsense” and called on European anti-tuna fishing lobbyists and politicians to take into account the recommendations of the ICCAT.

The irony of that statement will not be lost on the ICCAT’s detractors.

Michael Cosgrove is a Lyon, France-based freelance journalist, business translator, and interpreter and teaches English to French businesspeople.