According to the EU sources the Mediterranean tuna fishing season will be 15 days shorter this year with quotas and fleets also cut. But the environmentalists complained it was too little, too late. With the reduction in fishing days the European Commission also reduced allowed quotas by 27 percent overall. It has also negotiated a cut in fishing capacity for the industrial fishing ‘purse seiners’ which use huge cylindrical nets to scoop up their catch.
Last year also there was a sudden halt to industrial fishing of bluefin tuna two weeks early because quotas for 2008 had already been reached. Both France and Italy opposed that decision, questioning the commission’s figures and saying that their fishing industries had not reached even half their quotas.
Biggest tuna fishing nations in the EU have agreed to reduce their fishing fleet with Italy scrapping 19 boats to leave a total of 68 and France getting rid of eight to leave a fleet of 36 purse seiners. The EU has also decided to freeze the capacity of tuna farms, mainly in Malta, and to boost inspections at sea to avoid the kind of fraud whereby fishing ships sell their wares to the farms before coming into port.
Environmental organization Ocean said that the problem is much more serious, and was calling for “the immediate closure of the fishery, as stocks are condemned to collapse even if the fleet complies with 100 percent of the agreed quotas and management measures.” Xavier Pastor, executive director of Oceana in Europe, opined that over-exploitation, illegal fishing and the irresponsibility of the member states that reap the benefits from this fishery have taken this species to the brink of commercial collapse.
