(15-11-10) A research just published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) shows that one third of consumed tuna comes from pirate fishing. To this we have to add the refusing of some countries, like Spain, to reduce the number of catches.

    Bluefin tuna, the most universal of fish, is also the most valued and the most hunted. So much that it has lead to a lucrative black market that breaks all the international rules about fishing quotas and produces an annual profit of about 300 million Euro.

    The investigation has been carried out by 12 journalists in ten countries for a year, and it denounces the lack of control in this fishing. The ICIJ explains all sorts of tricks the sector uses to avoid the laws, such as transfer tuna to factory ships without going to the port, using supporting illegal flights, great number of banned catches of juvenile fish and cases in which the governments themselves have not declared the catches.

    The French government itself has admitted some of those charges. In a communiqué, the Agriculture Minister recognized that France had exceeded quotas for years, but that “since 2008 they have been respected scrupulously” according to Efe. France, in fact, had been published by having exceeded catches and had los their fishing rights in the following years.

INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION MEETING

    This information has appeared when there is less than one week for the next meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), which joins 47 countries and the EU and it is the organization that decides and distributes the margin of catches approved every year among the countries.

    Data about pirate fishing are added to the scarce advances in the international debates about the number of catches that is needed to prevent the species from get exhausted. If the opinion of technicians and ecologists so far was that the quotas exceeded the regenerative capacity of the species, the idea that the fishing is viable will be much more difficult to support when it is assumed that a great part of the market occurs hidden and out of control.

    Pew Environment Group, a foundation that takes part in the meetings of the ICCAT as observer has emitted the following communiqué: “The entire bluefin tuna supply chain in the Mediterranean is mismanaged and subject to cheating and fraud. This new report verifies what scientists and conservationists have been saying for decades: bluefin tuna catches are far too high and don’t take into consideration the staggering amounts of illegal fishing. If left unchecked, this will lead to a collapse of the fishery.”

FISHING SHOULD BE STOPPED TEMPORARILY

    From PEG, who advises ICAT in fishing issues, they think that “the situation of the species is critical and the lack of control in fishing industry makes necessary a timeout. Fishery must be stopped temporarily while effective controls are imposed to stop illegal fishing and allow the species to recover, as the current situation is a catastrophic. The population has been reduced 85% with regard to the 70’s”.

    The Group proposes to apply the precaution principle and impose a temporary closure of the fishery. At the same time, they are for the permanent ban on tuna fishing in spawning areas. The scientific committee of the ICAA has located six of them, one of which is south of the Balearic Islands. They say that it would be irresponsible if the countries did not act and protect their breeding areas.

    Other environmental organizations want the ICCAT to allow only an limited artisanal fishery, reducing the total catches from 0 to 6,000 tones per year (half the current ones) and to establish breeding sanctuaries where fishing is banned.

    The precedent of what happened to tuna populations in the American Atlantic should serve. It was intensively hunted and got exhausted in the 60’s. Despite being protected since then, the species has not overcome and still they are very few.

    This is a usual behaviour of many fisheries that have collapsed in other seas in the world. Once the species exceeds one limit it is very difficult for it to recover. It is crucial that countries act on time and prevent the bluefin tuna from exceeding that point of no return. “A temporary suspension is not to stop definitely fishing tuna, but trying not to end up with the species and that it can be fished in the futire” Pew Environment Group says.

HIGH TECHNOLOGY, CRAFTINESS AND GREED

    A mixture of globalization, high tecnhology, craftiness and greed has made bluefin tuna is on the verge of collapse. Although it lives in the North Atlantic, bluefin tuna Thunnus thynnus crosses the Strait of Gibraltar every year and groups together by the end of spring in the Mediterranean to breed. All the world fleets have joined there and have almost exhausted it.

    On November 17 - 27 the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) is having a meeting in Paris. The 47 countries are to decide the fishing quotas for the next year amid controversy. Some want to stop temporarily the catches. The EU proposes to reduce catches to the half.

    But there is one group of three countries (Spain, Italy and France) that want to continue the same and are willing to exhaust the existence of bluefin tuna. Commercial interests are over the value of the species. Japan is the main client of Spain and that country is the main consumer of Mediterranean bluefin tuna.

    The ICCAT has reduced the global fishing quotas. The 28,500 tones in 2008 were reduced to 22,000 in 2009 and to 13,500 in 2010. But they have not taking into account to the scientists that advise them, who recommended further cuts.

    For this year the committee of scientists of the ICCAT admits that there are not enough data to know if the species is profiting from the reduction in the quotas made in the last years. Everything is very confusing.

    In their last meeting the scientific committee concluded that if they continue fishing 13,500 tones, like this year, it is possible that the population of tuna is stable… But they are only 60% sure that this forecast is true.

    It is like the scientists had to predict with a crystal ball and, besides that, data are missed, and those existing are got from the fishing industry itself. They are going round and round in circles and in the meetings of the ICAT it seems to be always like that.

    While there are countries like Spain, with a powerful fishing fleet dedicated to tuna and to serve the Japanese voracity, what seemed to be an inexhaustible market is dying. Mediterranean bluefin tuna is becoming extinct inevitably and with the approval of the Spanish Government, among others.