Agencies take steps to halt tuna decline
Pastor Dale Morgan
Agencies take steps to halt tuna decline*
Staff and agencies
Friday January 26, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Organisations responsible for the world's fast-dwindling stock of tuna
today adopted a plan aimed at arresting the decline, but
conservationists said it failed to put sufficient controls on the
fishing industry.
Representatives from the five major tuna fisheries management bodies,
which together cover 77 countries and regions, agreed to a crackdown on
illegal fishing and sharing information on fish numbers at the meeting
in Kobe, Japan.
"Maybe the steps we made this week seem small, but this is a big step, a
historical step, I think," said the chair of the meeting, Masanori
Miyahara, of Japan's Fisheries Agency.
Conservationists have warned that Japan's appetite for sought-after
Atlantic bluefin tuna is taking the fish towards commercial extinction.
"We do see this meeting as a failure," said Alistair Graham of WWF
International.
The plan, which contained few specific measures, committed five regional
tuna regulatory bodies to boost their efforts to manage tuna fishing,
rebuild stocks and minimise environmental damage from the industry.
It also called for closer communication between regulators, especially
in sharing information on illegal fishing and scientific calculations of
the size of tuna stocks.
A follow-up meeting was scheduled for early 2008 in the United States.
The problem of so-called tuna pirates, many of whom fly the flags of
countries with weak regulations to escape proper monitoring of their
catch, has been seen as a key issue.
One plan discussed at the meeting was the electronic tagging of legally
fished tuna, allowing legitimate supplies to be traced.
Conservationists have also called for regulators to decide how many fish
can be caught, and then tailor the size of legitimate fleets to fit
these limits.
Before the meeting, the WWF warned that Japan's demand for bluefin tuna
for high-end sashimi and sushi meant stocks of the fish were severely
depleted.
About 2m tonnes of tuna were caught worldwide in 2004 and 530,000 tonnes
went to Japanese markets in 2005, according to Japan's Fisheries Agency.
The country also consumes more than half of the world's catch of bluefin
tuna.
Despite the agreement, the meeting in Kobe highlighted disagreements
among some of the regulatory bodies.
Japan has campaigned for limits on the fishing of smaller tuna, but
Europe has resisted this to protect its canned tuna industry. Larger
countries want to limit fishing capacity, but poorer island nations want
to expand their fleets.
Another key issue is increased monitoring of the regulatory bodies
themselves, which have been criticised by conservationists for failing
to stop the fall in tuna stocks.
Some countries, such as the United States, Canada and Australia, are
pushing for tougher oversight for regulators.