Government plans for a commercial fish hatchery have been slammed by Greenpeace as being even worse for fish stocks than the current ‘fattening’ practices which take place in local waters.
Last week, a spokesman told The Sunday Times that the government was planning to build a new commercial-sized hatchery that would include a bluefin tuna spawning facility.
The spokesman said the government had identified a number of possible sites for the hatchery and €1 million from the European Fisheries Fund was available for the project.
The government was responding to claims from Ta’ Mattew Fish Farms that the government was dragging its feet over the company’s proposal to build a commercial bluefin tuna hatchery that would be part-funded by the South Korean National Fisheries Research and Development Institute.
Ta’ Mattew director Raymond Bugeja said a bluefin tuna hatchery would help to conserve the population of wild tuna, as it would produce a self-perpetuating population of farmed bluefin tuna and lessen the need to fish wild stocks.
However, Greenpeace international oceans policy advisor Sebastian Losada told The Sunday Times that commercial hatcheries are not the solution for helping the wild bluefin tuna population recover and survive.
“The recovery of bluefin tuna will depend on the management decisions taken at ICCAT (International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas) level, and on the responsible behaviour of fishing countries and companies.
“In any case, bluefin tuna hatcheries will not be producing tuna at a scale which will have a significant impact in bluefin tuna fisheries and their market dynamics in the short to medium term,” Mr Losada said.
Mr Losada said a tuna hatchery would be even more “unsustainable” than the current practice in Malta of fattening tuna in offshore pens.
“Tuna farming – rather than fattening – as suggested will be even more problematic since it will require even bigger amounts of fish feed, actually transferring fishing pressure from bluefin tuna to other fish species lower in the marine food web.
“Both tuna fattening and farming are hugely inefficient activities from the point of view of food production and we regard them as unsustainable.”
Mr Losada added that Greenpeace opposes the use of public funds to boost research in this area, since public money should be used to support sustainable fishing practices and fishing communities.
Environmentalist and conservationist organisations, including Greenpeace, and many scientists were dismayed last November when ICCAT – under intense lobbying by Malta and other Mediterranean countries – reduced the 2011 Atlantic bluefin tuna quota by just 600 tons from the previous year, to a global figure of 12,900 tons.
World Wildlife Fund had urged a quota of less than 6,000 tons in line with scientific recommendations. Greenpeace at the time said ICCAT members should go down in history as the people “that have failed this magnificent species”.
Malta is at the centre of many concerns surrounding the sustainability of the Atlantic bluefin tuna population, with annual exports to Japan from its tuna industry estimated at between €80 million and €100 million.
Currently Malta’s industry revolves around tuna ‘fattening’ rather than breeding.