(MM / 01-09-09) Spain has not yet expressed support for the only measure that can protect this endangered species. In a letter to Elena Espinosa, Xavier Pastor, Executive Director of Oceana in Europe has asked Spain for supporting the proposal for the inclusion of bluefin tuna in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species CITES.

In the past month, several States, and among them some countries with interests in tuna fisheries, for example France, have publicly expressed their support for the inclusion of this species in Annex 1 of the Convention, the most restrictive for endangered species.

The bluefin tuna population has fast been reduced due to industrial fishing and illegal fishing, reaching the limits of commercial collapse. In the last decades the population has fallen about 75%, therefore Monaco has recently submitted a proposal to include this species in Annex 1 which, if endorsed, would ban international trade of this species.

Xavier Pastor has reaffirmed that it is urgent and necessary that the States are in favour of the proposal of Monaco: “Most of the production of this species is used for international trade. That is the reason for its inclusion in the Convention, although it won’t manage the fishery in a sustainable way, now it is the alternative with the most important impact and the most immediate, to end the main cause of the decline of this species: the high demand of international market.”

Now, the EU states have to reach a common position on the proposal of Monaco. During the meeting of the Members of the Convention, that will be held in the city of Doha in March 2010, they will decide on the immediate future of the tuna.