The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) is an international fisheries group created in the 1960’s with a mandate to protect “tuna and tuna-like species in the Atlantic Ocean and adjacent seas”. Unfortunately for the tuna, the commission has done the opposite and has driven one species of the fish, the bluefin, to the edge of extinction.
On the eve of a 10-day meeting in Brazil of the ICCAT, environmentalists are accusing the group of ignoring the advice of its own scientists and setting fishing quotas for bluefin tuna that have drastically depleted stocks.
“ICCAT has continually disregarded countless opportunities to do the right thing and secure the Atlantic bluefin tuna,” Susan Lieberman, director of international policy at the Washington-based Pew Environment Group, told reporters.
Marine biologist Carl Safina, president of the Blue Ocean Institute, which studies how human behavior impacts the ocean, called ICCAT “the poster child for not only failure… but cynicism and a real unwillingness to get serious, be professional and listen to what the science has to say.”
It’s All About The Benjamins…Not The Bluefins
With pressure from the fishing and seafood industry, the very industries ICCAT’s catch quotas and policies affect, ICCAT has for decades set quotas above what its own scientists have recommended for bluefin tuna. In addition to setting higher quotas, industrial fishing fleets systematically exceed them year after year.
These continually exceeded ‘higher than recommended’ quotas, combined with illegal fishing, has caused the population of bluefin tuna to decline by more than 85 percent in the eastern Atlantic and by more than 90 percent in the western Atlantic.
“The bluefin tuna will not be with us and certainly will be extinct if governments don’t do the right thing… and unless ICCAT says, ‘Enough is enough, it’s time for a zero quota; we’re going to put the brakes on this fishery,’” Lieberman said. “If we had any terrestrial species that had declined this much, this quickly, we would have said we have to shut this down, we have to let them recover.”
The real root of the problem is the still high demand for bluefin. Bluefin tuna is popular in upscale sushi restaurants around the world, particularly Japan, where the vast majority of bluefin tuna ends up along with other unsustainable ‘delicacies’ such as shark fin soup (which uses only the fin of the shark who when caught is usually de-finned on the deck of the ship and then thrown back alive into the sea to die a painful death.)
Environmentalists are also calling for stricter regulation of the trade in sharks, which are often caught up as “by-catch” in commercial tuna-fishing operations and are also being targeted directly by fishing fleets for their fins and meat. Around 100 million sharks are caught in commercial and sports fishing every year, and several species have declined by more than 80 percent in the past decade alone, according the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).
“ICCAT needs to set science-based sustainable catch limits on the number of sharks that can be killed and prohibit the retention of exceptionally vulnerable sharks species such as the big-eyed thresher,” Lieberman said.
The Real Solution
While conservationists want the bluefin tuna to be included on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) list of animals and plants most threatened with extinction, and for some species of shark to be included on a CITES list which regulates trade, the real solution to the problem is getting restaurants and patrons to look elsewhere for alternatives. Though dwindling by the day, there are several other fisheries that are more sustainably managed and abundant throughout the world. If there were no demand for bluefin, they would not be caught. So next time you’re ordering sushi or at a restaurant that serves bluefin, or any endangered species, order something else and/or express your concern about the establishment’s menu to the owner. You would be surprised to find how effective this really can be.
The Good: Environmental groups are trying to call attention to this pressing problem and taking action to stop or at least slow the extinction of bluefin and other endangered species.
The Bad: Lack of enforcement along with unsustainable quotas make any type of bluefin policy largely ineffective at curbing the massive declines in population.
The Bottom-Line: Driving an entire species to extinction just to satisfy the human pallete is completely unconscionable; especially when plenty of alternative food sources exist.
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