Word: bluefin
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...continues to rise, fueled in part by the now global appetite for sushi, we're in danger of fishing out the oceans. Once-teeming fishing territory like the Grand Banks off the eastern coast of Canada have gone fallow, and highly coveted species like the Atlantic cod and the bluefin tuna are becoming increasingly rare. An influential study published in 2006 in the journal Science predicted that if fishing around the world continued at its present pace, fish stocks would begin to decline, resulting in the final global collapse of wild fisheries, which could possibly happen as soon...
...Conservation groups are enraged by the outcome. The WWF and Greenpeace announced in Marrakech that they would launch a global boycott of all restaurants and supermarkets that serve or stock bluefin tuna. They will also apply to have the species declared endangered under CITES, the international Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora; a move that would effectively ban the global trade in bluefin tuna. A similar campaign to ban ivory has largely succeeded in reviving the world's elephant herds. And both groups plan to end their long connection to ICCAT. "The game...
...surge in bluefin-tuna-fishing over the past decade has been driven by the proliferation of sushi restaurants across the world. The bluefin industry, once the province of rustic local fishing fleets in the Mediterranean, was last year worth about $1.6 billion. Today tuna fleets use high-tech spotter planes buzzing over the Med during the summertime tuna-spawning season in search of shoals that have escaped the trappers. The industry's major players are massive multinational corporations like Mitsubishi, the world's biggest tuna trader - Japan imports the bulk of bluefin tuna caught in the Med. Some...
...tuna trade earns millions in tax revenues for Europe and employs thousands of Spanish and Italian fishermen, whose livelihoods have been pummeled by declining stocks in recent years. The specter of further job losses amid a global economic downturn has militated against European officials pressing for sharper cuts in bluefin-fishing. "None of the [fisheries] commissioners want to come back home and say, 'I have saved bluefin tuna but I have ruined my fishing industry'," says Fonteneau, who estimates that fishermen make as much in one month selling high-priced bluefin tuna as they do during an entire year...
...Tuesday that "it was important to us to protect the interests of our small fishing fleets." Yet Europe's fisheries official Amilhat says that, inevitably, many fishermen will lose their jobs as fleets shrink in response to reduced catch quotas. And if the environmentalists' boycott campaign further cuts bluefin consumption, the species may yet have a fighting chance...