Bluefin tuna (photo, ©2010 WWF/Canon Manu San Felix)
[WWF video] Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Atlantic bluefin tuna’s last reasonable chance for survival as a species has taken a beating: its defenders have been defeated in a critical vote at a Cites meeting in Doha, Qatar. A clear majority of nations of the Cites pact of countries, which regulates trade in endangered species, voted 18 March against a ban on bluefin tuna fishing.
The Cites head office is based in Geneva.
Gland, Switzerland-based World Wildlife Fund for Nature, which has campaigned for a ban to allow stocks to recover from over-fishing, says 72 countries in Cites voted against the ban, while 43 voted for it and 14 abstained.
Some members of the great white shark's family are on the Cites list under review for protection
Bern / Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland has agreed to back demands for a ban on bluefin tuna, a favourite of sushi diners, when Geneva-based Cites meets in Doha, Qatar, 13-25 March. Cites is the inter-government Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora and 175 governments will be sending representatives to the triennial meeting.
Bluefin tuna: A dying school © 2009 Brian J Skerry, National Geographic Stock, WWF
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A complete ban on the trade and commercialization of the North Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna is to be discussed by the 175 member countries of Cites that meet in Doha in March, according to a statement by the group Friday 5 February. Cites is the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
Monaco proposed last 14 October that the bluefin tuna be added to Annex 1 of the Cites most endangered species list, effectively ending its legal exploitation.
© 2009 Brian J Skerry, National Geographic Stock, WWF
Gland, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A ban on fishing the bluefin tuna in the Eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea, stocks of which are at their lowest historical levels, was not approved by the body in charge of managing the fish, announced WWF International, from Recife, Brazil Sunday 15 November.
The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) agreed only to reduce the allowed quota from 19,500 tonnes to 13,500 tonnes, not enough to help stocks of the fish to recover, according to WWF, which is based in Gland, near Geneva. The ICCAT’s own scientists said at the ICCAT meeting in Recife that a maximum quota of 8,000 tonnes, if strictly enforced, would give the eastern bluefin tuna only a 50 percent chance of recovering.
WWF International has called on the International Convention for the Conservation of the Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT) to impose a ban on catching the bluefin tuna, as well as a ban on trading in it. ICCAT is holding its 21st regular meeting in Recife, Brazil Monday 9 November. It meets to decide on whether to heed its own scientists’ calls to end its members’ fishing of the bluefin tuna, stocks of which are close to collapse in the Eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean.
Monaco proposed 14 October that the bluefin tuna be placed on the CITES list of endangered species banned from international trade. A CITES ban on the trade in ivory in 1989 is credited with saving African elephant populations.
European tuna fleets export most of their catch to Japan, the world’s largest importer of tunafish.
WWF International joined Greenpeace 28 October to call on the organization to heed its scientists’ findings, pleas that have largely gone unheeded in the past. A single bluefin tuna sold for $173,000 in January 2009. In 2007, it is estimated that the tuna catch was 61,000 tonnes, more than twice the quota fixed by ICCAT.
