AS TUNA NUMBERS FALL, FISHERY MANAGEMENT FAILS TO ACT

By Roberto Mielgo Bregazzi Reprint | | Print |

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MADRID, Oct 27 2010 (IPS) - Eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna (BFT) will once again dominate discussions at the upcoming International Convention for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) Annual Meeting, which will be held in Paris, November 17-27.

Expect business as usual.

For some, this will be yet another photo-op to green-wash what has been defined as ‘an international disgrace’ in fisheries management.

For others, it will once again fail miserably to take crucial decisions needed to achieve long-term benefits for the BFT stock. The inability to do the right thing is the hallmark of this industry-controlled inter-governmental fisheries body.

In 2006 ICCAT adopted a 15-year recovery plan for BFT, subsequently modified in 2008 and 2009.

While some may feel satisfied that these measures seem to have shown some results, others see zero progress.

Failures in the enforcement of agreed management measures and compliance with basic rules have been an ongoing burden on the BFT fishery during these past four years.

Since 2006 we have seen rampant and widespread illegal overfishing and fraudulent laundering of these species on the black market, with the collusion of a number of ICCAT member state administrations -which have then reported grossly inadequate and inaccurate BFT catch data.

A report released in October 2010 with the results of ICCAT’s first official regional observer programme, shows that traceability from purse seine vessels to tuna ranches is highly imperfect to say the least, in spite of clear rules and massive resources allocated to control activities.

Market records of BFTs fished and ranched in the Mediterranean in 2003 and 2008 and auctioned fresh in Japan show a dramatic 37 percent decline in average fish size. The observed trend is consistent with the marked increase in fishing mortality on larger fish reported by SCRS for 2000-2005.

These are some of the reasons underlying the attempt to list a ‘bonsai-like’ BFT stock on Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) at its Doha (Qatar) March 2010 Summit. Indeed, to many of us the BFT stock started to collapse back in 2007.

The bold but failed CITES listing move by environmental NGOs was fiercely opposed by industry barons, backed by Japan’s mighty diplomacy, while a bemused and toothless EU complacently stood-by.

Last year, ICCAT adopted Total Allowable Catches (TAC) amounting to 13,500 tonnes for 2010, again contrary to its own scientists’ advice.

During its latest meeting in October 2010, ICCAT’s Scientific Committee (SCRS) conducted a new stock assessment for BFT that will be considered in Paris to determine BFT catch limits and other management measures for 2011 and beyond.

The SCRS report indicates that available data is clearly insufficient to determine the true status of the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean BFT stock, and that its current status as well as the sustainable level of catch are effectively unknown.

Yet according to SCRS’s latest flimsy assessment, we are now led to believe that maintaining catches at current TAC levels would be consistent with a ridiculous 60 percent probability goal to recover the stock by 2022.

In contrast to such Voodoo-science nonsense, EU Fisheries Commissioner Damanaki has made it abundantly clear that the European Union’s position in Paris should be fully and legally coherent with existing EU objectives, commitments, and legal frameworks.

BFT stock rebuilding standards should therefore be considered in the context of overall EU commitments under the Johannesburg Agreement on Sustainable Development as explicitly set out in the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive, which requires EU Member States to achieve or maintain good environmental status by 2020 and not 2022.

Under the EU’s Marine Strategy Framework Directive, EU Member States are legally bound to adopt fisheries management measures that will allow fish stocks in its waters to recover by no later than 2020.

According to SCRS’s latest assessment, this 2020 goal would imply an ICCAT BFT annual quota of 0-6000 tonnes, thus corresponding with EU legal obligations.

While part of the European Council, led by France and Spain, in the meeting in Luxembourg on October 26 wilfully turned a blind eye to such legally-binding commitments, industry barons accustomed to years of a “free-for-all” made it abundantly clear that “slashing the quota from 13,500 to 6,000 tonnes would mean … the temptation to fish illegally will increase since in most cases the allowable catch would not allow fishermen to recover expenses.”

Not surprisingly, the ministers of Mediterranean member states found nothing better to do than squabble over the crumbs of this moribund fishery.

EC’s final position on BFT at ICCAT is yet to be decided by Commissioner Damanaki during the coming weeks. She will no doubt ponder the support expressed by the UK, Germany, and Sweden, versus the unbearable political scenario of a EU Commission surrendering once more to the unthinkable.

Until substantial progress is made on all fronts, management of BFT should be subject to the utmost precaution, including at a minimum:

-A zero TAC for 2011-2013 in order to be able to comply with obligations contained in the Marine Strategy Framework Directive;

-The closure of spawning grounds to direct fishing in the spawning season;

-The immediate suspension of all industrial purse-seine fishery for tuna ranches across the Mediterranean, which account for well over 75% of total catches;

-The deduction of 5,192.60 tonnes from France’s future quota allocations to penalise France’s overfishing in 2007 in accordance with the rules on the payback of quota: thus France would be assigned a zero BFT quota in 2011 and (ii) would receive quota reductions every year until the total is repaid in full;

-The creation in cooperation with ICCAT, of sanctuaries correlating to BFT spawning grounds before the stock spawning biomass can recover to MSY levels.

Until that time, the Rule of Law should be imposed to its fullest extent in order to prevent tuna thieves from further looting with impunity the riches of our seas.

Nothing less will suffice in the eyes of bilked EU taxpayers, who have generously subsidised an environmental, political, legal and economic disgrace. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

(*) Roberto Mielgo Bregazzi is an independent BlueFin Tuna industry/market analyst and consultant.