It is no denying fact that the bluefin tuna is an “apex predator” fish of the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea, and its extinction would start within two years by the inaction of the industrialised North and international regulatory bodies. The activists said that these warnings are timely, given the inability of the world’s wealthy nations, in particular the members of the European Union and Japan, to prevent the disappearance of marine species that are essential to maintaining ecosystem balance.
François Chartier, head of Greenpeace-France’s oceans campaign, told that the assessments of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) states the current Atlantic bluefin tuna population is less than 15 percent of the original. Charles Braine, head of the sustainable fishing programme at WWF-France, said a study by his organisation in 2009 “suggests that the bluefin tuna will disappear if the necessary measures are not enacted immediately.”
According to Braine the extinction of this fish would have unforeseeable consequences for the ecological balance of its habitat. United Nations warned that excessive fishing will continue to deteriorate marine ecosystems and will lead to the disappearance of fish populations. Reproduction rate of bluefin tuna is considered ‘medium’, the reduction to less than 15 percent of the original population is an indicator of extreme risk of extinction, explained Chartier.
Chartier described the attitude of the European Union and Japan as “incomprehensible and unscrupulous” for not supporting Monaco’s motion to ban international trade in bluefin tuna. He added that although the EU apparently supported Monaco’s proposal to ban all fishing of this species, at the same time it asked for more studies to document the risk of extinction.
