Tuna recovery plan adopted by MEPs
Posted, March 10, 2009 @ 15:00
Bluefin tuna facing extinction, Stevenson warns
10th March 2009 -- Man's appetite for tuna is threatening the fish with extinction in the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean, Conservative fisheries spokesman, Struan Stevenson MEP, warned today as MEPs adopted a recovery plan for bluefin tuna.
The bluefin tuna trade in the EU, which is now worth £150 million a year, has led to a 90 percent drop in tuna stocks since the 1970s. As well as traditional nets and lines, many immature tuna are also caught by herding them into offshore cages where they are fattened ready for slaughter - effectively ending their ability to breed and multiply.
Mr Stevenson has said that the Common Fisheries Policy is partly responsible for the decline in tuna stocks. Every year, ministers and the commission bow to pressure from fishermen and set quotas for bluefin tuna too high, whilst many fishermen from southern Europe have been fishing illegally above their quotas in the key Mediterranean spawning ground.
Mr Stevenson said:
"Urgent action is overdue if we are to prevent bluefin tuna from extinction.
"The Common Fisheries Policy has allowed irresponsible fishermen in southern Europe to decimate tuna stocks. If this recovery plan is to work, it needs to be vigorously enforced with observers and CCTV onboard tuna vessels. The sanctions against vessels caught flouting the rules must be much tighter and bluefin tuna products caught illegally must be taken off the shelves.
"There is already a good deal of regulation in place to protect bluefin tuna but the CFP makes it almost impossible to deliver a workable policy. Ultimately the best way to protect tuna would be to end the quota system and start afresh with a new devolved management system based on the number of days a vessel can go to sea."