Red tuna are fast becoming the ocean’s most highly-prized treasure due to their extinct population and soaring price. Fishermen are fighting fierce battle to catch this species for their better business. A mainstay of fresh sushi, tuna has such high demand that some companies are prepared to pay huge sums of money to have planes buzzing over the Med in order to be the first to spot the last few shoals.
Adding to the woes both conservationists and now EU officials are confronting these fishermen for their practices – and more closely monitoring the vessels – as fears grow that the in-demand fish could be on the point of extinction. Despite new European Commission (EC) quotas regulating the amount of tuna which can be fished, environmentalists are adamant that international trawlers continue to flout the law.
Environmentalists are convinced that the wily fishermen knowingly surpass their quotas and fish out of season, profiting from lax surveillance. For fishermen, it is sure-fire evidence that the legislation is now beginning to pay off. Juan Serrano, director general of Grupo Balfego, which owns four of the six Spanish tuna fishing trawlers, said that they met the EU’s quota so quickly can only mean one thing: the red tuna recuperation plans and the control systems are working.
For, as a spokesperson for the Community Fisheries Control Agency (CFCA) warns that three years ago this was a tuna jungle but, in international waters, nobody is inspecting anything. And the battle to ensure the long-term survival of tuna stocks has now become more difficult after a breakdown in global talks designed to ensure their conservation.
