In the meeting in Marrakech, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) and the European negotiators arrived carrying a plan that would see bluefin tuna fishing suspended completely in the Mediterranean for a year or more. It is told that the negotiators demand some change. Recent years have seen fishermen deploying ever bigger and cleverer technologies in an effort to catch what is probably the most valuable fish in the sea.
It is informed that the results of the meeting have been entirely predictable; with catches soaring and illegal fishing rampant, numbers are crashing and boats are finding precious few of the really big fish that once made up their entire catch. The European Commission ended this year’s season early, with fisheries commissioner Joe Borg complaining of “countless failures to properly implement the rules”, including French boats that had fished for three weeks and not declared any catches.
Spain and Italy have extended their support to ban fishing of tuna. Even Japan, the destination for most of the catch, recently agreed cuts in its own tuna catches. Japan said that Mediterranean quotas are unsustainably high, while the US has been the strongest voice for restraint. ICCAT negotiators have shown to be bold enough to take decision of a suspension that would be a marker, showing that even the most powerful commercial interests on the seas can be sublimated, and quickly, when the case for conservation is clear.
According to the ICCAT the main purpose of this decision is to save the bluefin, in the end, to reduce the number and size of boats chasing it. It is said that the temptation will be to take a milder medicine; to shorten the fishing season still further, to create more “safe havens”, to cut quotas.
