Global IssuesAiling Tuna Fisheries Hit Hard by Poachers
Miles away from the briny business of tuna harvesting, delegates from around the world gathered in San Diego, California for three days in mid-July to discuss the future of the fishing industry.
The meeting is part of an ongoing dialogue launched four years ago in Kobe, Japan to improve the monitoring of the far-flung tuna fleets trolling international waters. The prized fish are sold in markets worldwide.
Although Kobe decisions are non-binding, they will play a role in future negotiations used to govern 90 percent of the global tuna fishery.
Poaching on the part of so-called IUUs - illegal, underreported, unlicensed - vessels is of great concern to fishery managers due to the unrelenting pressure placed on fish species and to fishing communities economically impacted by overfishing.
According to officials from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), tuna poaching is an estimated nine-billion- dollar a year enterprise, undermining any efforts to manage tuna fisheries effectively.
Getting an accurate count is tricky because ocean-going fish such as bluefin tuna, billfish and sharks may spawn in Fiji, mature in Hawaii and swim to California chasing prey fish on the prevailing ocean currents, only to reappear in nets of fisherman off Ecuador.
Collecting such data is key to fisheries managers tasked with setting the quota for the number of fish that can be caught each year.
'We are trying to sustainably manage these species and in order to do that we must accurately gather data, analyse that information and make informed decisions based on the evidence on what the science tells us,' Russell Smith, a spokesperson for the NOAA, told IPS.
Among the ideas suggested is greater transparency. The U.S. delegation is calling for the creation of a global registry of fishing boats and IUUs akin to the VIN numbers currently used to track and register the sale of vehicles from state to state, and sharing that global registry among agencies tasked with regulating tuna fisheries.
In theory, the scheme should make it easier to identify and isolate vessels operating outside the law, giving port and fishery officials greater leverage against poachers intent on catching fish illegally. Until now, IUUs vessels could fly flags of convenience, change their names, swap crews and continue to operate despite numerous violations for overfishing.
Dr. Rebecca Lent, the NOAA director of international affairs, believes better tracking techniques would deter these ocean-going scofflaws. 'We have to take a global approach to tracking fishing boats, fishing activities and to the product itself,' she told IPS.
Historically, the west coast city of San Diego was the epicentre of the U.S. Pacific tuna fleet, until environmental concerns over too many boats chasing too few fish caused the industry to recede during the 1980s. The city is still home to the corporate headquarters of Chicken of the Sea and Bumble Bee tuna companies. Commercial fishermen based in San Diego still ply their trade in the waters off Alaska and the South Pacific.
Although the overall health of the Pacific's tuna fishery seems to be vibrant, the prognosis for tuna globally is grim. According to a recent report by the IUCN (the International Union for Conservation of Nature), five of the eight species of tuna are threatened with extinction. Most at risk are Atlantic bluefin and the Southern bluefin in tuna fisheries near Australia.
The decline is widely attributed to overfishing. Up to 90 percent of the large open-water fish have been removed from the ocean over the last 50 years by industrial fishing, and scientists warn those losses could lead to irreversible harm to ocean ecosystems if swift action is not taken.
Days prior to the conference, the article, 'Double Jeopardy for High Value Tuna and Billfish', was published in the peer-reviewed journal Science. The study revealed that seven of the 61 species surveyed, including tuna, billfish and mackerel, were under threat of extinction. According to published accounts, there has been too little concern over the exploitation of tuna, due to the high value of the fish stocks, exacerbated by the lack of oversight in regulating the multinational tuna fleet.
'The true value of Kobe will be on following through,' said Gerry Leape, the chief delegate from the Pew Trust, a Washington-based nonprofit organisation favouring science-backed policy decisions.
Cross-listing boats to prevent countries from providing safe harbor to IUU vessels would be a step in the right direction, he told IPS.
© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service