Bluefin tuna showdown pits industry vs. ecology

Economy clashed with ecology as dozens of nations met in Paris yesterday to set catch quotas for diminished stocks of Atlantic bluefin tuna, a mainstay of gourmet sushi and sashimi in Japan.

The 10-day meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas seeks a compromise between ensuring the species’ future and salvaging a multi-billion-dollar business spread around the Mediterranean rim.

“Bluefin tuna fishing does not have a future unless ICCAT shuts down purse-seine fishing and farming” in the Mediterranean, said Maria-Jose Cornax, an expert with advocacy group Oceana.

Thirty- to 40-metre purse-seine ships can trap thousands of bluefin during spawning season in a single drawstring net which is then hauled to coastal “farms” where the tuna are fattened for market.

Oceana, along with NGOs Greenpeace, WWF and Pew Environment Group, have called for a ban on this kind of fishing.

They also want a reduction in 2011 of the allowable annual catch from 13,500 tonnes (the 2010 limit) to 6,000 tonnes.

The 48-member ICCAT has set the rules and quotas for fisheries in the Atlantic, and monitoring for compliance.

Driven by wholesale prices in Japan that can top $100,000 per specimen, industrial-scale fishing in the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic has depleted stocks by 85 per cent in recent decades, scientists say.

France’s fisheries minister, Bruno Le Maire, said his country favoured maintaining the 13,500 tonnes level, a position backed by Spain and Italy.

Britain and Germany, along with EU Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki, have come out in favour of a sharp reduction.

The European Union was supposed to forge a common position going into the meeting, but has so far failed to do so.

ICCAT’s scientific committee said last month that extending the 2010 catch limit for each of the next three years would give bluefin in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean a 63 per cent chance of attaining so-called “maximum sustainable yield” by 2022.