20 Feb 2008 - Boston,
US – Continued mismanagement could force
some tuna populations to quickly go the
way of cod, a highly threatened fishery
that once helped shape economies of whole
nations, leading scientists said in the
symposium “Last Best Chance for Tuna:
Learning from the Cod Collapse” at the American
Association for the Advancement of Science
(AAAS) Annual Meeting in Boston on February
18.
A group of leading natural
and social scientists analyzed the lessons
learned from cod and recommended urgent
actions to prevent further declines in tuna
populations. Organized by World Wildlife
Fund (WWF) and the University of British
Columbia, the panel included author Mark
Kurlansky, Andrew Rosenberg from the University
of New Hampshire, Daniel Pauly and Rashid
Sumaila of the University of British Columbia,
Barbara Block from Stanford University,
Rene Subido from RD Fishing Corporation,
and Jose Ingles from WWF.
Just as cod was once
perceived as Canada’s “Newfoundland currency,”
tuna is largely considered the “chicken
of the sea”—cheap and plentiful. Where the
landed value of cod in Atlantic Canada was
at its peak of $1.4 billion in 1968, it
dropped to just $10 million by 2004. Trends
for some tuna species are cause for concern.
In 2001, for example, landed value of yellowfin
tuna in the Western Central Pacific Ocean
was US$1.9 billion, but three years later
it had dropped by more than 40 percent to
US$1.1 billion.
Populations of certain
tuna species are falling in both the Atlantic
and the Pacific oceans, in some cases despite
a host of management strategies, as with
bluefin tuna in the western Atlantic. “Conventional
fisheries wisdom did not work for the northwest
Atlantic cod and is now failing for tuna
in some cases,” said WWF’s Katharine Newman,
moderator for the panel. “We need to find
solutions that advocate sustainable fishing
starting right at the source like the Coral
Triangle down to consumers’ plates through
MSC certification and public awareness.”
Even after a decade
of intense protection, cod populations have
not rebounded as fisheries scientists predicted
they would. “Does the fault lie in the fishermen,
the regulators, or the scientists? Or is
the answer to be found in history?” asked
Kurlansky. British Columbia’s Pauly proposed
that the answer lay in history. “Although
we know much about Atlantic cod and bluefin
tuna, we have not learned a thing from their
history and we may lose them because of
that,” he said.
Rosenberg showed what
the cod case can teach tuna management by
examining the cod case to illustrate how
historic and current fishing pressure and
the unique characteristics that made cod
vulnerable to exploitation contribute to
their continued state of depletion.
Innovative research
to learn more about these apex predators
is being implemented by scientists like
Stanford’s Block who fits tuna with data-logging
satellite tags or implanted archival tags.
“It’s like tossing a computer inside a tuna
and hoping that one day you'll see it again
and the memory chip will be filled with
tuna days,” she said. Mapping key locations
for bluefin tuna may help protect the species
escape total population collapse.
From the other side
of the world, Jose Ingles of WWF-Philippines
spoke about the start of an imminent decline
in high value fisheries. Abundant fish aggregating
devices are resulting in significant juvenile
bycatch, a severe threat to species like
bigeye and yellowfin tunas. “This hurts
the economy and impacts the species,” said
Ingles. “If juvenile fish are allowed to
mature, they would be worth more than $1.5
billion annually–significantly higher than
the $236 million currently derived from
juvenile catch.”
New joint management
between juvenile and adult yellowfin and
bigeye tuna catching nations could result
in millions of dollars for local economies,
resulting in win-win outcomes for fish and
people, suggests economist University of
British Columbia’s Sumaila, “This approach
could have prevented the depletion of cod
stocks off Newfoundland and such balancing
can reduce the chance of a similar fate
befalling tuna stocks of the Coral Triangle.”
Scientists hope that
tuna populations might yet evade the catastrophic
decline that devastated the cod fishery.
“This panel discussion can only flag the
very real danger that tuna populations face,”
said Sumaila “What we need is to use all
the diverse lessons we have learned from
cod and galvanize global action for the
fast-disappearing tuna.”
