Política, negocis i ciència en lluita per la Tonyina Vermella. Jo estic per la ciència.
Aquests dies ha tingut lloc a Madrid la reunió del Comitê
Científic de la ICCAT on s’estan valorant les diferents opcions que les parts
contractants (és a dir governs) hauran de debatre i adoptar durant la propera
reunió de Novembre, a Paris. El tema estrella, de nou, la Tonyina Vermella.
Després del desastre que va suposar que CITES no la incorporés a la llista d’espècies
amenaçades i en prohibís, per tant, el comerç internacional, ara la pilota
torna a estar en mans de la ICCAT, l’organització que va ser creada teÒricament
per garantir la preservació de l’espêcie però que ha estat sotmesa a tals
lluites d’interessos econòmics, comercials i polítics que, simplement, ha
fracassat. Ara, després d’anys de menystenir les recomanacions científiques,
alguns governs, inclosa la UE, diu que a la reunió de París faran allò que els
científics diguin. A bona hora! Sigui com sigui el debat científic tampoc és
senzill, i no està exempt de les pressions polítiques i econòmiques que tant de
mal han fet fins ara. Adjunto una excel·lent crònica del corresponsal de la
BBC, Richard Black: Bluefin numbers shift in murky waters.
Bluefin numbers shift in murky waters
Richard Black | 14:49 UK time, Thursday, 7
October 2010
A fascinating document has fallen into my lap
from a meeting now going on in Madrid looking at tuna stocks and catches.
The question it asks – perhaps without
intending to – is this: can the Mediterranean bluefin industry ever be properly
monitored.
With the bluefin having become something of a
cause celebre recently, it’s a question with major ramifications politically,
commercially and ecologically.
To begin at the beginning: this week’s meeting
brings together members of the Standing Committee on Research and Statistics
(SCRS).
It advises the government representatives who
make decisions within the International Commission for the Conservation of
Atlantic Tunas (Iccat).
Anyone familiar with the field will know that
the Atlantic bluefin is in trouble, having undergone a swift population decline
– largely because of the recent dramatic expansion of fleets in the
Mediterranean, which has led to sustained increases in legal and illegal
catches.
The big players now are purse seine boats,
which use nets to encircle and then scoop up whole groups of bluefin as they
spawn. Many of the fish are transferred to ranches and farms, where they’re
kept in cages until they’re plump enough to command maximum profit.
One of the biggest problems identified by
Iccat is how to keep track of the fish during this chain of events.
How many fish are actually caught by purse
seiners, and how much does the catch weigh? How much goes to ranchers, and is
the process traceable?
The 2010 fishing season saw initial operations
of the Regional Observer Programme for Bluefin Tuna (ROP-BFT), designed to
monitor the biological production line, and operated by consultants MRAG and
Cofrepeche.
It is their draft report back to Iccat that
has now fallen into my lap; and very revealing it is.
To the very basic question of all – how much
the purse-seiners caught – there are two sets of answers. One consists of data
submitted by vessel captains – the other, estimates made by observers on board
those same vessels.
And they differ – sometimes hugely.
Using captains’ records, the total catch for
the 2010 season was 3,829 tonnes; but the observers’ estimates tot up to a mere
2,367 tonnes.
Some of the national figures are even more out
of whack. French vessels reported a catch double the observers’ estimate: Greek
captains, even more remarkably, reported a haul of 37 tonnes, while observers
on Greek boats saw them catch not a single fish.
How can this happen? The consultants pull no
punches:
“The principle reason cited by observers
was that there was no reliable means to accurately estimate the number and
weight of tuna caught.”
Some observers discussed this with the
vessels’ crews, and tried to use the insights gained to make more accurate
estimates; but this appears, if anything, to have muddied the already turbid
waters:
“One observer consulted the master on
interpreting sonar images which resulted in catch estimations 20%, 25%, 50% and
60% greater by weight than the vessel declaration.”
Adding to the confusion is the practice of
joint fishing operations, where a group of vessels working together can decide
to share the catch, even though only one of them may have physically caught the
fish.
This, presumably, explains the Greek
situation. It certainly presented a challenge to observers, with the
consultants’ report noting:
“…no fishing operation was conducted, yet
(documents) were generated, which the observer was obliged to ‘verify’,
‘certify’ and to countersign.”
The observer programme was designed to follow
the fish through the chain, monitoring the transfers to towed cages and thence
to farms.
Here, another curiosity arises: the weight of
tuna registered as having been transferred, at 4,136 tonnes from vessels’
records, is considerably larger than the amount that was supposed to have been
caught in the first place.
And when the fish were deposited at farms, the
figure swelled again, to a declared weight of 10,188 tonnes.
(The latter figure is, I’m told, under review,
with records being checked to eliminate any double-counting; however, I’m also
told that a purse-seine owner admitted at the Madrid meeting that catches had
been a lot higher than the figures submitted by fleets.)
The report contains a lot more in this vein,
with some passages hinting at ways in which illegally caught tuna could be
introduced to the supply chain.
The consultants do have suggestions for
improving the process; but even so, their report provides on-the-ground
evidence of just how hard it is to monitor the number and weight of bluefin
being extracted by this most extractive of fishing methods, especially when not
all players in the lucrative industry appear to have welcomed the monitoring.
This week’s SCRS meeting will conclude by
making recommendations on the catch quota for next year, which covers all
fishing methods rather than just purse-seiners; they’re to be published on
Friday.
The recommendation, I gather, will be that
anywhere in the range between 0 and 13,500 tonnes for 2011 is consistent with
Iccat’s declared objective – namely, to set quotas that give at least a 60%
chance of restoring the Mediterranean bluefin fishery to health by 2022. (This
year’s total was 13,500 tonnes.)
However, the scientists are also likely to
note that somewhere closer to the 0 figure would be precautionary given the
uncertainties noted by this consultants’ report.
The size of the discrepancies is worth
emphasising. There’s more than a fourfold difference between the lowest and
highest indicators of catch (the observers’ reports from purse seine vessels
and the weights arriving at farms, respectively).
Getting a quota wrong by a factor of four would be enough to take a fish
population to commercial extinction. It’s that important; and it’s with that
caveat that the SCRS recommendations will go forward to the Iccat meeting in
Paris at the end of November, when national delegates will decide how
precautionary they want to be for next year.
Foto: Mercat de peix a Tòquio. Font: BBC