backup plan for bluefin tuna proposed

Backup plan for bluefin tuna proposed

WORLDWIDE
Monday, March 22, 2010, 16:50 (GMT + 9)


The Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP) has recommended a backup plan for the depleted Atlantic/Mediterranean bluefin tuna if its Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) Listing 1 fails.

SFP believes that the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) has failed to respond to the tuna crisis responsibly and, as well, that customers and retailers will continue to purchase sashimi grade tuna despite the stocks? depletion.

According to SFP, if the CITES meeting in Doha this month fails to list bluefin tuna under Appendix 1, fishing may resume in May. A backup plan would then need to be implemented.

Further, even if CITES 1 does succeed for Mediterranean bluefin, the plan can be readily applied for other tuna and related species also under threat. It is important to note that a successful listing of East Atlantic/Mediterranean bluefin will stimulate demand for other tuna already overfished, such as bigeye.

SFP recommends taking the following steps:

1. Managers should follow scientific advice, which should be required to advise total allowable catches (TACs) with a 90 per cent certainty of rebuilding stocks to above target healthy levels within 10 years, which would translate into a 1-3 year no-fishing moratorium.
2. All traders should adopt a "control document" and use "intra-industry warranties" to sustain existing efforts (and possible CITES measures) to eliminate illegal fishing.

The next stock assessment is due in six months.

ICCAT?s lower quota set in late 2009 leaves individual fishing vessels with smaller quotas and thus may provoke their temptation to fish illegally. While ICCAT has introduced new measures to reduce illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, their effectiveness is unconfirmed.


SFP recommends the following ?warranty? programme to bluefin tuna traders worldwide: To adopt stronger legal verification measures via supplier "control documents" and ideally persuade importing countries to mandate these measures for all imports. Current compliance with the existing bluefin catch documentation (BCD) program is only 43 per cent, according to results presented at the latest ICCAT meeting in Madrid.