Bluefin tuna on edge of extinction, environmentalists warn
Començo avui una sèrie d’articles/apunts en relació a les negociacions que estan tenint lloc a Brasil en relació a la protecció i recuperació de la Tonyina Atlàntica, especialment de l’espècie altament amenaçada, la Tonyina Vermella. En tant que ponent del Parlament Europeu per a la qüestió, i delegat del Parlament a la ICCAT, em pertoca seguir el tema en primera persona. Procuraré informar-ne puntualment a través d’aquest bloc. De moment adjunto una nota informativa de l’agència AFP.
Bluefin tuna on edge of extinction, environmentalists warn (AFP, 6nov09)
WASHINGTON — An international fisheries group set up to protect
Atlantic tuna has done the opposite and driven one species of the fish,
the bluefin, to the edge of extinction, environmentalists said Thursday.
On the eve of a 10-day meeting in Brazil of the International
Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT),
environmentalists accused 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. (segueix…)
“The world’s first fisheries management agency formed out of concern
for this one species never followed their own science, never lived up
to their mandate to manage for a sustainable yield,” Safina said.
ICCAT was set up in the late 1960s to conserve “tuna and tuna-like
species in the Atlantic Ocean and adjacent seas,” according to its
website.
Lieberman said ICCAT has for decades set quotas above what its own scientists have recommended for bluefin tuna.
Those quotas are systematically exceeded by industrial fleets, which over-fish the species.
Combined with illegal fishing, this has caused the population 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,” Lieberman told AFP.
The environmentalists also called 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 environmentalists 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.
“We want their trade regulated so they don’t go the way of the bluefin,” Lieberman told AFP.
Bluefin tuna is popular in upscale sushi restaurants around the world,
particularly Japan, while shark-fin soup is a delicacy and status
symbol in some Asian countries. Shark meat is also gaining popularity
in Europe.
Forty-eight countries in every region of the world — ranging from
Algeria, Barbados, China and France, to Ivory Coast, Japan, the United
States and Venezuela — are contracting parties to ICCAT.
Foto per a TIME de Thomas Lee / Atlas Press. Més a: http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1933377_1975860,00.html#ixzz0WB7rQI5a