Call for regulation of tuna farming

Nature Trust (Malta), a privileged partner of the World Wildlife Fund, has urged the government to heed a call to governments around the Mediterranean and the EU to put proper and harmonised regulations for tuna farming practices into place.

A decrease in fishing pressure on the wild tuna stock is also urgently required by lowering fishing quotas and the reporting system for catch figures must be changed to accommodate the new `fishing for farming` practices, it said.

Other recommendations put forward by WWF include improved control and regulation of illegal fishing and farming operations.

It also calls for a moratorium on the development of new tuna farms in the Mediterranean until the implications of this activity on the environment, the tuna stock and the fish stocks used for feed are properly addressed at the appropriate international and national levels.