Yahoo News 15 Apr 09;
BRUSSELS (AFP) – The Mediterranean tuna fishing season will be 15 days shorter this year with quotas and fleets also cut, EU sources said Wednesday: but environmentalists complained it was too little, too late.
The bluefin fishing season begins officially on Thursday and will end on June 15, two weeks earlier than the scheduled 2008 season.
At the same time the European Commission has reduced allowed quotas by 27 percent overall. It has also negotiated a cut in fishing capacity for the industrial fishing 'purse seiners' which use huge cylindrical nets to scoop up their catch.
Last year's season was cut short when in mid-June the European Commission ordered a halt to industrial fishing of bluefin tuna two weeks early because quotas for 2008 had already been reached.
Both France and Italy opposed that decision, questioning the commission's figures and saying that their fishing industries had not reached even half their quotas.
The biggest fishing fleet reductions have been agreed by the biggest tuna fishing nations in the EU, with Italy scrapping 19 boats to leave a total of 68 and France getting rid of eight to leave a fleet of 36 purse seiners.
Of the other European Union members only Spain and Malta retain smaller tuna fleets, which will remain unchanged, while Greece has recently scrapped the last of its tuna ships.
The EU has also decided to freeze the capacity of tuna farms, mainly in Malta, and to boost inspections at sea to avoid the kind of fraud whereby fishing ships sell their wares to the farms before coming into port.
"It's the last chance" to avoid the end of Mediterranean bluefin tuna, which has been heavily overfished in the past, an EU official said.
However he estimated that "scrapping another 10 vessels would help to eliminate overfishing."
The lobby group Oceana saw the problem as much more serious, calling for "the immediate closure of the fishery, as stocks are condemned to collapse even if the fleet complies with 100 percent of the agreed quotas and management measures."
"Over-exploitation, illegal fishing and the irresponsibility of the member states that reap the benefits from this fishery have taken this species to the brink of commercial collapse," said Xavier Pastor, executive director of Oceana in Europe.
"Under the leadership of the EU, a new recovery plan has been implemented in 2009 that once again ignores scientific recommendations," he added.
Close watch kept on EU bluefin tuna fleets
Jeremy Smith, Reuters 15 Apr 09;
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Aircraft and patrol boats will be deployed to prevent over-trawling by European Union fleets when the fishing season for the endangered bluefin tuna opens Thursday.
Prized by sushi lovers but chronically overfished for years, bluefin tuna commands sky-high prices in Asia, particularly in Japan where a single fish can fetch up to $100,000.
Conservation group WWF said Tuesday overfishing would wipe out the breeding population of Atlantic bluefin tuna within three years and it was "inexcusable" to allow fishing when stocks were collapsing.
Europe's two-month season opens at midnight for the six EU states fishing in Mediterranean and east Atlantic waters: Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Malta and Spain.
Last year, the European Commission banned bluefin tuna trawling after countries quickly filled their allotted quotas. The EU executive also accused France and Italy, the two nations most involved, of quota-busting and under-reporting catches.
This year, the Commission says it is determined to ensure the EU's overall catch quota for 2009, agreed in international negotiations, is not exceeded. France and Italy have agreed to reduce fleet numbers, it says. "Stocks are considered to be in a critical situation," one Commission official said. "The fishing season will be closed on June 15, it will have reduced quotas and increased inspections.
"We have to limit the scope for those operators who want to avoid the rules."
This year, the EU will increase surveillance using aircraft, high seas and coastal patrol vessels as well as port inspection teams to check bluefin tuna landings, the official said.
Industrial vessels that use a "purse seine" net, which floats the top of a long wall of netting on the surface while its bottom is weighted under the water, are the main problem.
France and Italy have pledged to reduce numbers of bluefin purse seine trawlers by more than 20 percent and nearly 30 percent respectively this fishing season, the Commission says.
Some 85 percent of the fish are caught in June, and commission experts say the EU's fishing capacity is so large and bluefin trawling activity so concentrated in one month that the EU quota can be exhausted in just two days of fishing.
"Economic concerns suggest that there will be problems," the official said. "But we will be able to avoid overfishing if everyone respects the rules. The forecasts for this year are much more optimistic than for 2007/08."
Bluefin tuna are known for their huge size, power and speed, with maximum weights recorded in excess of 600 kg.
(Editing by Robert Woodward)
