Posted on 28 August
2009 - Brussels, Belgium / Rome, Italy -
- European Union member states and the European
Commission will decide in the
next week whether to support bluefin tuna
conservation – or to encourage the continued
willful overexploitation of an endangered
marine resource.
Today, the European
Commission’s Directorate General for Fisheries
and Maritime Affairs, DG MARE, will consider
DG Environment’s support for a listing of
the severely overfished Atlantic and Mediterranean
bluefin tuna on Appendix I of the Convention
on International Trade in Endangered Species
of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) to temporarily
ban all international trade – the same day
that EU member states are asked to give
their own feedback on the proposal.
“It would be scandalous
if the European Commission were to allow
the region’s most emblematic marine species
associated with a thousand-year-old fishing
tradition to go extinct on its watch,” said
Tony Long, Director of WWF’s European Policy
Office in Brussels. “This would be a shameful
legacy for the Barroso Commission. They
must back the proposal to temporarily ban
international trade.”
Following an initial
proposal tabled in July by the Principality
of Monaco, several EU countries – France,
UK, Netherlands, Germany, Austria – quickly
expressed support to list Atlantic bluefin
tuna on CITES Appendix I, which would give
the overexploited species a chance of recovery.
French President Nicolas
Sarkozy was first to express his country’s
support for an international trade ban through
CITES, saying: “It is against this great
responsibility that we will be judged by
our children and the generations to come.”
In addition, the European
Commission’s Directorate General for the
Environment has since recommended in a draft
report – excerpted in a recent Financial
Times story – that “from a scientific and
technical point of view, the criteria for
the listing of Atlantic bluefin tuna appear
to be met. (...) There is no doubt about
the link between international trade and
overexploitation of the species.”
If the EU Commission
and member states cannot reach consensus
today, the decision risks instead running
to a showdown of all 27 European Commissioners,
as early as next Wednesday.
“It would be extraordinary
if DG MARE, the very department tasked with
protecting this iconic species, sought to
block a CITES listing to ban trade in this
endangered animal,” said Tony Long. “How
could any of us have faith that the Commission
is serious in wanting to end the catastrophic
policy failures in the existing Common Fisheries
Policy?”
Listing Atlantic bluefin
tuna on CITES Appendix I would be a real
chance for the species to recover from decades
of massive overfishing and overexploitation,
plagued by illegal takes and disregard for
scientific advice.
Once bluefin tuna shows
signs of recovery, WWF hopes to see a sustainably
managed, thriving fishery in the EU and
around the Mediterranean again in the years
to come.
