Plight of bluefin tuna highlights EU's fish crisis

The organisation, along with industry representatives, will present the findings today before a meeting of EU fisheries and agriculture ministers. The WWW is calling on the European Commission to take drastic action in stopping overfishing of the species.

The Commission on Friday also set out its guiding principles for cutting fishing quotas in 2007, playing the middle ground between politics and scientific warnings that stocks of certain species such as cod are close to collapse.

Scientists, organisations like the WWW, and the European Commission have been calling on EU member countries to make drastic cuts in fishing quotas for many species, especially cod and tuna. The cuts, if approved by the bloc's legislators, with further increase the dependence of EU food processors on foreign supplies.

It could also result in more production coming from aquaculture rather than wild fish stocks as governments face up to the fact that the world's oceans are being depleted at unsubstainable rates.

The WWW report further serves to emphasize the crisis by highlighting the state of Mediterranean tuna. Catches around Spain’s Balearic Islands in the western Mediterranean, for example, are down to just 15 per cent of what they were just a decade ago, the WWW report stated. Only 2,270 tonnes have been caught there this year — mainly by French and Spanish fleets — compared with 14,699 tonnes in 1995.

The data also reveal that Mediterranean bluefin tuna farms — which would usually be filling up by this time of year — have experienced substantial decline.

From 2006’s catches of wild Mediterranean tuna, some 22,520 tonnes have been put in captivity and farmed — a 25 per cent reduction compared to 30,000 tonnes farmed last year. Six Spanish tuna ranches have already ceased operating altogether because there were simply no more tuna, the WWW stated.

“The new data point to the risk of economic collapse in the Mediterranean bluefin tuna fishing and ranching sector,”​ stated Roberto Mielgo Bregazzi of Advanced Tuna Ranching Technologies and author of the WWF bluefin tuna report. “The Mediterranean bluefin tuna species is under threat and many jobs in the tuna fishery are being jeopardized. The situation is alarming.”​

The WWF is urging the Commission to support a strict recovery plan for the fishery, including the closure of industrial fishing during the spawning season, real-time monitoring of fishing and farming activities, the compulsory placing of observers on board all tuna vessels and in tuna farms, and the setting of a scientifically based minimum catch size.

As if in answer the Commission on Friday set out its guiding principles for cutting fishing quotas in 2007. The Commission's limits attempts to heed the scientific warnings but also cater to the politics in the industry, which is resisting the inevitable job losses.

If adopted the policy could reduce the domestic supply and result in processors having to look more and more for imports from non-EU countries. The Commission is suggesting that the bloc adopt a maximum sustainable yield policy (MSY) to control overfishing and reduce production.

Maximum sustainable yield is the highest yield that may be taken from a fish stock without lowering its productive potential for future years.

The Commission will propose to fisheries ministers that member countries cut their quotas on overfished species by up to 15 per cent a year, a graduated reduction aimed at helping the fishing sector adjust to lower catches. In the case of those cod stocks falling under the recovery plan, there had been no detectable recovery as of December 2005.

For 2007, the Commission will propose limits if scientific bodies are able to provide quantitative estimates of stock size and fishing mortality. If no such estimates can be supplied, the Commission will propose a reduction of 25 per cent in catch levels for cod, and a reduction of 25 per cent in fishing days for mixed fisheries that catch cod.

Most European fish stocks are now overfished, according to the influential International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES). In its annual report to the Commission last October, the scientific body called for a complete overhaul of deep-sea fisheries in the north east Atlantic, which accounts for 60 per cent of the EU's production.

The scientists called for drastic measures to be taken until a full assessment on the situation is completed. The ICES annual assessment is used by the European Commission in recommending levels in the annual quota negotiations.

Scientists have submitted reports stating that the current rates of overfishing on EU stocks vary on average from two to five times the level that would provide the highest catch. The overfishing has led to lower catches, lower incomes for fishermen, low profitability in many fisheries, and high catches of young fish - many of which are discarded, the Commission stated.

In a communication published on Friday, the Commission proposes to set management measures based on the level of biological risk each species faces.

The six categories of fish stocks identified are stocks which are currently fished according to the principles of maximum sustainable yield (MSY), stocks that are overfished but inside safe biological limits, stocks outside the safe biological limits, stocks subject to long-term plans, short-lived species and stocks for which the precise state is unknown but which are not at high biological risk.

Maximum yields for species classed as being fished outside the safe biological limits will face the 15 per cent cut in quota, or more if the situation is urgent.

Last month the European Commission proposed cutting quotas on cod, salmon and other Baltic Sea species, in some cases by up to 20 per cent.

Annual fishing quotas are ordinarily set out in a regulation proposed by the Commission in late November – after receiving scientific advice in mid-October - and voted on in the December Council of Fisheries Ministers.

Last October scientists from the influential International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) called for a complete overhaul of deep-sea fisheries in the north east Atlantic, which accounts for 60 per cent of the EU's production.

The ICES annual assessment is used by the European Commission in recommending levels in the annual quota negotiations.

The ICES recommended that all existing deep-sea fisheries should be cutback to low levels until they can demonstrate that they are sustainable, the organisation said in a press statement.

They advised a complete halt to depleted deep-sea sharks, and they will recommend that no new fisheries for deep-sea fish should be allowed until it can be demonstrated that they are capable of being sustainable.

The report also called for a halt to catches of spurdog, basking shark, porbeagle, common skate and thornback ray. They want a halt to cod fishing in the North Sea, the Irish Sea and west of Scotland.

They want the fishing of hake to be stopped in the Iberian peninsula. A complete halt to fishing for sandeel in the North Sea and pout in Norway.

Cod stocks in the North Sea, Irish Sea and west of Scotland remain well below minimum recommended levels and the advice for these stocks, and Iberian Peninsula hake, which is also still in poor condition, is zero catch.

Whiting in the Irish Sea are also thought to be in poor condition so the advice is for the lowest possible catch until the stock has had a chance to recover. ICES also advised that North Sea plaice and sole need further reductions in catch, or effort, to let the plaice spawning stock increase and to prevent the sole spawning stock from declining in the near future.

According to Eurostat, the EU's 25 members produced about 7.6 million tonnes of fishery products in 2002. Denmark (1.47 million tonnes) was the largest producer in 2002, followed by Spain (1.15m tonnes ), France (0.95m tonnes) and the United Kingdom (0.87m tonnes). The four members accounted for 60 per cent of the total EU production.

Production in all states fell by 17 per cent from 1995 to 2002. Aquaculture represents 17 per cent of total production.

Earlier this year Greenpeace launched an attack on retailers who it claims “do next to nothing to ensure that their fish is sourced from sustainable sources”. The group has called on supermarkets to face up to their responsibilities and ensure their seafood products are sourced from environmentally friendly sources.

"Globally, three quarters of commercial fish stocks have been fully exploited and nearly 90 per cent of stocks of large predatory fish are already gone," the group claims.