I’ve been in Paris for
just under two weeks attending the 17th
annual ICCAT meeting – a gathering of the
fisheries managers who decide fishing quotas
on bluefin tuna and other species in the
year ahead. Every day, I walk the short
distance from my hotel, enter the doors
of the Marriott
conference centre and disappear into Planet
ICCAT for (at least) 8 hours.
Inside the conference
centre, delegates from countries around
the world debate and ultimately will decide
on measures to regulate fishing. There are
also a huge number of representatives from
the fishing industry here observing. In
theory, the government representatives here
should be acting to protect fish populations.
Unfortunately, the reality is quite different:
best illustrated by the case of Atlantic
bluefin tuna. Scientists agree that stocks
of this incredible fish have been decimated
by years of overfishing. Over 80% of the
stock may already be gone and some believe
that number to be even higher. Around the
world, governments, scientists, environmental
advocates and members of the public have
been calling for urgent action to avert
the bluefin’s disappearance: an environmental
tragedy in the making. None of this urgency
seems to have found its way to Planet ICCAT.
Inside the conference
centre this year the discussion and debate
continue. But where is the action? ICCAT’s
track record is abysmal. It has for years
ignored the advice of even its own scientists,
setting previous years’ bluefin catch quotas
way above the recommendations for sustainable
catch levels. This must not be allowed to
continue for the simple reason that it risks
taking the species to commercial extinction.
Planet ICCAT might be
a better place if it allowed others in to
report on its discussions and decisions.
Given that ICCAT is in the important business
of safeguarding species from disappearing
from our oceans forever, you might think
it appropriate to allow journalists or even
members of the public inside to watch and
record its progress. But no. The doors closed
on planet ICCAT two weeks ago – journalists
are not allowed in to the meeting and observer
organisations risk losing their access if
they report on the details of the discussions.
The doors are closed until the decisions
are made public and the meeting is brought
to a close. Even inside the conference,
it is very difficult for observer organisations
like Greenpeace to follow the real discussions
– because most of the sensitive and important
negotiations are taking place in private
meeting rooms that we do not have access
to.
This startling lack
of transparency must end. It is time for
ICCAT to open the doors so that the public
can come and see which countries and delegates
sit and argue for continued destructive
fishing.
ICCAT is now in its
final days. Tomorrow, we will hear the outcome
of the discussions on a new quota for bluefin
tuna. This year and for several years, Greenpeace
has been lobbying hard for the fishery to
be closed. But the lack of urgency on Planet
ICCAT combined with its lack of transparency
mean that another year of destructive fishing
for bluefin tuna is likely.
Oliver Knowles is an
oceans campaigner with Greenpeace International
based in London.
+ More
ICCAT Fails to Protect
Bluefin Tuna
The ICCAT tuna summit
closes in Paris, failing to protect the
bluefin. Where have all the tuna gone? They've
been caught.
This year, ICCAT had
the opportunity to do two things – rescue
bluefin tuna from the edge of commercial
extinction and salvage its reputation for
inaction. It has now failed on both counts.
Once again, ICCAT’s 10-day meeting has resulted
in a new fishing quota for bluefin, this
time of 12,900 tons – a tiny reduction on
last year’s quota of 13,500 tons. Come May,
sanctioned by the very organisation which
is supposed to “conserve” tuna, destructive
purse-seine fishing vessels in the Mediterranean
will cast their nets again on this hugely
depleted species. Let’s put a marker down
here and now – the governments and delegates
at this ICCAT session must be noted in history
as those people that have failed this magnificent
species.
Spare a moment to contemplate
just how bad the result is. The quota that
governments have given on bluefin tuna is
deemed by ICCAT’s own scientists to provide
only a 70% chance of recovery. Put another
way, that’s a 30% chance of failure. Are
these acceptable risks when we are talking
about the future of a species?
I have a question for
each of the governments who have failed
bluefin tuna at this meeting: would you
get in an airplane or a car if you were
told that there was a 30% chance that you
would not reach your target destination
alive?
Yet again, the pursuit
of short-term profit has won out over the
need to protect a species, and our oceans,
for the future. This is hardly surprising
given the number of fishing industry representatives
and fishermen who have turned up here in
Paris to lobby for continued fishing.
This conference has
sent a bleak message to the world about
its inability to reverse biodiversity loss.
It is hard to imagine a clearer case for
urgent conservation measures than the one
for bluefin – the science is clear that
the species has been decimated by overfishing.
But if our governments can’t even find a
way to protect a species like bluefin tuna,
how will it find a way to protect the huge
numbers of other commercially hunted fish
that we know are heavily depleted? It is
easy to forget that world governments are
committed to fighting the rapid loss of
biodiversity from our planet – a commitment
recently renewed at the Convention on Biological
Diversity in Nagoya, Japan.
The Nagoya commitments
are now merely fine words that have not
found their way to action. And not for the
first time this year. When I attended the
CITES meeting in Doha earlier in the year,
many nations argued against protection for
bluefin because they believed ICCAT was
the place to regulate the fishery. But when
it came to ICCAT, these words once again
were not translated into action. And so
the ICCAT process turns through another
full cycle and the destructive fishing continues.
If there is a future
for bluefin tuna, one that is now highly
uncertain, it lies beyond ICCAT’s weak decision-makers
and secret negotiations. ICCAT had its chance.
It blew it. Now we need to find a way to
hold fisheries managers and governments
to account- publically- in the hope that
we can change the way we manage our oceans:
for the benefit of the hundreds of millions
who rely on them.
