A loophole in rules governing Mediterranean blue-fin tuna fishing means the species could disappear from the region within just a few years, according to a forthcoming report from WWF.
The EU sets quotas for direct fishing and farming, but there are no quotas for the number of fish that can be killed through a practice called 鈥減ost-harvesting鈥�. This involves catching wild tuna and keeping them in cages before slaughter.
Twelve Mediterranean tuna 鈥減ost-harvesting farms鈥�, in the waters off Spain, Italy, Malta and Croatia, for example, produced 11,000 tonnes of tuna over the past year, the WWF report concludes. This compares to an estimated 24,000 tonnes caught in the Mediterranean by direct fishing. The total allowed quota for direct fishing in the Mediterranean and East Atlantic regions is 29,000 tonnes.
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鈥淕overnments must urgently take action to close yet another loophole within European fisheries management and step-up controls on this growing practice while there is still time,鈥� says Simon Cripps, director of WWF鈥檚 Endangered Seas Program.
鈥淐ompletely disappear鈥�
More than 90 per cent of post-harvested Mediterranean blue-fin tuna goes to Japan to make sushi. But the increasing popularity of sushi in Europe is also increasing post-harvest catches, says WWF. Post-harvesting produces fattened fish that are more suitable for sushi.
鈥淏lue-fin tuna is the new 鈥榝oie gras鈥� of the Mediterranean,鈥� says Paolo Guglielmi, head of the marine unit at the WWF Mediterranean Programme Office. 鈥淚f nothing is done, wild blue-fin tuna will completely disappear from the Mediterranean Sea, perhaps with no possibility of rebuilding stocks.鈥�
WWF fisheries officer Sergi Tudela says it is very difficult to monitor wild blue-fin tuna populations because fishing companies do not accurately report catches.
WWF recommends that new regulations be introduced to curb post-harvesting of the species when the European Union鈥檚 Common Fisheries Policy is reformed later in 2002.