Bluefin tuna is one of the most over exploited fisheries in the world. Its current biomass is estimated to be less than 15% of its original stock, before industrial fishing. In October, scientists working for the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) recommended a ban on fishing to give the stocks a chance of recovering.
On November 15th ICCAT dismissed the information provided by their own scientists and agreed to set the new quota at 13,500 tons of fish, down from 19,950 tons last year. This does not come as a complete surprise as ICCAT has a history of setting their quotas far beyond what their researchers recommend. This quota not only creates risk of commercial extinction to the critically endangered fish from 'legal' fishing, it does not account for the overfishing and illegal fishing that takes place.
The continued failure of ICCAT to manage the bluefin stock has forced the Principality of Monaco into action. Last month Monaco submitted a proposal to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species(CITES) to list bluefin tuna under Appendix I, which would make fishing it illegal. CITES will meet in March 2010, which is when the fate of bluefin tuna will be decided.
Resources:
Greenpeace
Mongabay
EUobserver
Treehugger
Pew Charitable Trust
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