Posted on 08 November
2010
Rome, Italy: Results of an independent investigation
launched this weekend have
revealed a complex international black market
in East Atlantic bluefin tuna worth an estimated
$4 billion.
A web of reporters from
the International Consortium of Investigative
Journalists (ICIJ) around the world have
spent 8 months digging into the fishery
and trade of this highly prized seafood
commodity which is also classified as an
endangered species. The release of the investigation’s
findings falls just a week before international
regulators meet in Paris for crucial decisions
on the recovery and management of this species.
The findings confirm
WWF’s repeated warnings over the last decade
of broad lack of control in this fishery
– with many cases of quota violation, widespread
underreporting, use of banned spotter planes,
catching of undersized fish, and even governmental
misreporting coming to light.
"No consumer, no
business, no government can be sure"
“The revelations of
ICIJ’s exhaustive investigation confirm
WWF’s repeated warnings about widespread
illegalities rippling throughout the supply
chain of the Mediterranean and East Atlantic
bluefin tuna fishery and trade,” said Dr
Sergi Tudela, Head of Fisheries at WWF Mediterranean.
“No consumer, no business,
no government, can be sure they are dealing
with responsibly caught and traded bluefin
tuna – the whole chain is tarnished. Decision-makers
at ICCAT have the power to put a stop to
this barbarity once and for all at their
meeting in Paris later this month. There
can be no more burying heads in the sand
on this international scandal.”
Speaking of the fishery’s
workings between 1998 and 2007, French fishing
captain Roger Del Ponte told ICIJ: “Everyone
cheated. There were rules, but we didn’t
follow them.”
ICIJ’s investigations
point to France’s fisheries authorities
covering up the illegal activities for years
and deliberately misreporting to the EU
and ICCAT, the International Commission
for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas –
the body that sets management rules for
the Atlantic bluefin fishery.
New scheme full of holes
Recent data gathered
from ICCAT by WWF confirm that rule-flouting
in the Mediterranean bluefin tuna fishery
was still widespread during the 2010 fishery.
ICCAT has repeatedly
failed to reign in illegal fishing in the
Mediterranean Sea. The findings of the ICIJ
investigation show the gross failure of
ICCAT’s new Bluefin Tuna Catch Documentation
Scheme (BCD). Flaunted by ICCAT as a solution
to the lack of control, the BCD is described
in the ICIJ report as “so full of holes
that its data are almost useless”.
With this information
coming to light, there can be no excuse
for the international community at the ICCAT
meeting in Paris, on 17-27 November 2010,
not to suspend the destructive industrial
purse seine fishery and the tuna farming
industry that depends on it.
WWF urges ICCAT delegates
to heed the clarion call of ICIJ’s report
and maximise the opportunity of their Paris
meeting to set a sound recovery plan for
East Atlantic bluefin tuna: allow only a
limited artisanal fishery by cutting total
catches to between 0 and 6,000 tonnes per
year, enforce respect for payback rules,
and establish no-fishing spawning sanctuaries
in key spawning grounds.
