Bluefin tuna: What’s to be done?
By DAVID JOLLY
9 April 2012 The other day, a ninth-grade student e-mailed me to ask about the plight of the bluefin tuna. What, he wanted to know, should the government be doing to help keep those endangered fish alive? As a journalist with an interest in marine conservation, I’ve written extensively on the (mostly unsuccessful) international negotiations to protect the bluefin. But I’m not an expert on fisheries science. The question about what should be done is one I have regularly posed to marine scientists, N.G.O. policy advisers, government officials and fishermen themselves. Maybe it’s is also a question for Green blog readers. I can note that virtually everyone I’ve spoken with on this question does say that the stock of bluefin will collapse if the giant purse seiners that fish the Mediterranean are not reined in. These factory ships – mostly French, Spanish or Italian – vacuum up entire schools of bluefin for fattening before the tuna are sold to Japan. And as I reported in October, the conservation measures that have been put in place are widely flouted, with a huge black market in the fish making a mockery of international protection efforts. A number of governments, particularly in Europe, have turned a blind eye to that trade. Some would go as far as to ban trade in bluefin altogether. Since Japan consumes about 80 percent of the world’s bluefin catch, that would probably reduce fishing pressures. A ban backed by the United States failed to win approval two years ago at the United Nations Conference on International Trade in Endangered Species in Doha, Qatar. […] So let’s put this question to readers of the New York Times Green blog. What should the United States and other nations do or not do to keep Mediterranean and Atlantic bluefin tuna stocks healthy?
