Japan and Canada lead campaign against plan to protect endangered tuna. They said that the ban on fishing of bulefin tuna would devastate the world’s fishing economies. Delegates at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) in Doha voted by a margin of 68 to 20 against a proposal to immediately outlaw the sale of bluefin.
It is true that the stocks of bluefin, the largest and fastest of all tuna species, have declined to roughly 15 per cent of historic levels. The demand of bluefin tuna is much higher in Japan, where good specimens can fetch tens of thousands of dollars. A 500lb bluefin was auctioned for £111,000 on the Tokyo fish market two months ago, making it the most valuable fish ever sold.
In the meeting the proposed measure was thrown out when Libya, where many non-EU bluefin vessels are based, used an arcane procedural measure to limit the debate to just 90 minutes. Under Cites rules, delegates were then forced to vote on new trade restrictions immediately. Dr Sergi Tudela, a WWF fisheries scientist who was at the talks, said that it is scandalous that governments did not even get the chance to engage in meaningful debate about the international trade ban proposal.
