Confidential papers show how fishing boats in the region routinely fail to follow regulations put in place to protect tuna stocks Fisherman land a bluefin tuna. Photograph: Jeffrey L Rotman/Corbis

By David Adam, Environment correspondent, guardian.co.uk, Thursday 17 September 2009 Measures to protect dwindling stocks of bluefin tuna fish in the Mediterranean have failed to curb illegal fishing practices, leaked papers show. The Guardian has been passed a confidential report of a French navy inspection of the tuna fishery, which shows how fishing boats in the region routinely fail to follow regulations put in place to protect stocks. Conservation experts say the report shows that existing controls are not enough to save the species and that wider measures are needed. The disclosure comes in advance of a European commission vote on Monday on whether to support moves to list bluefin tuna as an endangered species under the UN agreement Cites, which would bring an immediate ban on its trade. Sergi Tudela, head of fisheries at WWF Mediterranean, said: “This report speaks of the real situation of the fishery, more than any paper measures that remain largely unapplied. It is evident that the bluefin tuna fishery in the Mediterranean is still entirely out of control and illegal fishing continues unabated. Management measures adopted for the fishery are not only well below the standards requested by urgent scientific advice, but even so they are not even implemented in the field.” Stocks of bluefin in the Mediterranean – where they spawn before heading into the Atlantic – collapsed during the 1990s, driven by demand for sushi, for which their tender flesh is highly prized. Numbers are now reckoned to be below one-fifth of what they were in 1970. … Tudela said: “The risk situation reported for the bluefin tuna breeding stock is higher than ever. This is inevitable given the huge overcapacity of the industrial fleet targeting the stock. To break even, this giant fleet needs to overfish. The only option to save the stock and the fishery is to temporarily close the fishery, to create conditions for a sustainable fishery and to allow the stock to recover. A ban of international trade under Cites is essential to cut the main driver of overfishing. We want to see a sustainable fishery in the future, but to allow that we must give tuna a breather.” …

Measures to protect Mediterranean tuna are failing, report warns