Five international interests working to protect and more stringently regulate the world’s Bluefin Tuna stocks meet this week in Kobe, Japan to agree on strategies which they hope will lead to more sustainable fishing practices. Bluefin Tuna has long been popular in Japan as an ingredient in sushi and sashimi, and consumption of the fish has risen of late in the United States and Europe as “healthy diet” habits have become more prevalent.
The World Wildlife Fund issued a statement at the conference’s opening stating that Bluefin Tuna “is massively over fished and the spawning stock of southern bluefin in the Indian Ocean is down about 90%.” For the WWF’s comprehensive primer on Tuna stock depletion, click here.
Japan called the conference, fearing the extinction of such a valuable natural commodity, and officials from Japan’s Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry have said that they hope to make the meeting annual. Meanwhile, Japan’s whale fishing continues…
Among the conference’s participants were the Western Central Pacific Ocean Fisheries Commission, the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission, the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas and the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna. The organizations have indicated plans to implement a strategy to require certificates of origin for every Tuna caught, which is hoped to reduce illegal fishing. However, advocates urge that more is needed.
The UN in 1982 established the Agreement for… the Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks, which sought to promote “good order in the oceans through the effective management and conservation of high seas resources” by creating minimum standards for fishery management and enforcement mechanisms. However, over-fishing has continued almost completely unmitigated since.
Environmentalists fear that even the best fishery management protocols will fail to bring fish stock populations up if climate change continues unabated.
Comments
Does anyone know any history of whether fish populations are able to recover given some reduction in fishing intensity? Or is it just a lost cause once the populations get low enough that people feel a need to protect them?
I just read about sperm whales, whose population was decimated when they were the prime source for the world's lamp oil and before people figured out how to make kerosene from crude oil. The rising cost of sperm whale oil was part of the motivation for developing petroeum technology.
I've heard that local Coho Salmon have made a significant recovery since their listing on California's endangered species list. I don't know how low the population got. Like the tuna and sperm whales, economic interests drove the movements to protect them.
I haven't looked into recovery statistics for endangered species, but studies must exist. Any fish and wildlife experts?
My concern or doubt is that ecological groups also oppose fish farming. So, is the solution to stop eating fish? switch to meat? I imagine that's even worse than fish farming. In Spain there is a lot of Greenpeace activism on this but their information didn't leave me feeling like there were many options out there... Does anyone know to what extent fish farming can be done sustainably?