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Mix tasty fish from the wild with growing global demand and industrial fishing, and you have a recipe for disaster. That is what is facing the Atlantic bluefin tuna, a single one of which was auctioned in Tokyo’s Tsukiji market earlier this year for more than $181,000.

At the recent meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, in Doha, Qatar, a valiant attempt was made to prevent the collapse of this stock. But given the intransigence of major consumers like Japan and the inability of rich nations to agree to manage the oceans better, the future for the Atlantic bluefin tuna may be grim.

Alarmed by the rapid decline, Monaco proposed at the Doha meeting to ban all international trade in the species from the North Atlantic. It was backed by several European states, the US and others, but opposed by Japan, the most lucrative market for bluefin tuna. How ironic that this is the International Year of Biodiversity, when the rate of loss of species globally was supposed to be reversed and that Japan is hosting the Tenth Conference of Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity.

The decision on the Atlantic bluefin tuna followed findings by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas that populations in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean have declined by more than 74 percent since 1958, most of the loss in the last 10 years. The figures for the western Atlantic are worse, with a decline of more than 82 percent since 1970. Such catastrophic declines mean that the Atlantic bluefin tuna may soon become “critically endangered” under international criteria used to estimate extinction risk.

What lies behind the proposal to list bluefin tuna on the endangered species list is a staggering failure of fisheries management and flagrant disregard for the laws and agreements surrounding the sustainable use of the ocean’s resources.

To judge by the way the contracting parties to ICCAT have consistently voted themselves quotas above scientific recommendations, one would suspect that higher earnings, rather than sustainability, were the main concern. In 2008, faced with evidence of the annihilation of bluefin tuna stocks in the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic, ICCAT set a quota of 22,000 metric tons for 2009 and 19,950 tons for 2010 despite scientific recommendations for catches between 8,500 tons and 15,000 tons.

However, even the agreed catch levels have been disregarded by the fishing fleets of many of the contracting parties of ICCAT. In addition, there is ample evidence of underreporting of the catch. The European Commissioner, Jo Borg, openly acknowledged in 2008 that French vessels had not reported their catches, while Italian vessels had exceeded their quota, in some cases by more than double. Spotter planes were also being used to locate shoals of tuna, a practice that was prohibited by ICCAT. In 2007, tuna imports reported to ICCAT by Japan, amounted to more than 32,000 tons when the quota for the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean was less than 30,000 tons. Taken together, consumption and trade of tuna within European Mediterranean countries and the catch by the Japanese fleet, scientists estimated that the total catch for 2007 may have amounted to 61,000 tons.

The growth in fishing is, of course, driven by growing demand for variety with affluent, health conscious people the world over embracing fish and Japanese sushi, for which Atlantic bluefin tuna is a prized item.

Following the Second World War, distant-water fishing fleets, including Japan’s, rapidly expanded. Now industrial corporations are involved in the transport and trade of tuna worldwide. The Mitsubishi Corporation is responsible for 40-45 percent of the trade in Mediterranean tuna and holds significant stakes in the international companies that fish, ranch, transport and sell tuna. Mitsubishi is now supporting new catch certification schemes, however, there has been speculation that tuna are being frozen in anticipation of future price rises and that the industry has, until recently, exerted a negative influence through governments on negotiations regarding Atlantic tuna.

For the Atlantic bluefin there is no place left to hide. Unless action is taken immediately it is likely that the species will largely disappear from the Mediterranean and North Atlantic. ICCAT has promised to “get tough” but it is too little, too late. Sadly, overfishing is also driving other marine species into catastrophic decline. Poor management may be costing fisheries $50 billion per year in terms of lost revenue. The real losses in terms of ecosystem, biodiversity and food security are incalculable.



Dr. Alex David Rogers is Reader and Scientific Director of the International Program on the State of the Ocean. Copyright © 2010 Yale Center for the Study of Globalization.