Expanded bluefin tuna quotas could reverse recovery: Scientists
Eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna’s spectacular recovery will be reversed if the region’s 51-nation fisheries management body embraces quota recommendations finalized late Friday by its scientific advisory panel, scientists at the meeting warned.
The warm-blooded, fatty fish — which can grow to the size of a small car, and swim nearly as fast — underpins a billion-dollar business and is a culinary mainstay of sushi and sashimi in Japan, phys.org wrote.
The suggested new quota of 36,000 tons per year would need to be reduced by nearly a quarter to ensure at least a coin-toss chance of continued growth of the highly prized fish’s stocks, currently about half-a-million tons.
Inexplicably, both the higher quota recommendation and the evidence of its negative impact were contained in the same report by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas’ (ICCAT) science body, the Standing Committee on Research and Statistics.
The Ocean Foundation’s Shana Miller, a scientist who participated as an observer at the meeting in Madrid, said that the committee “recommended quotas that will lead to the decline of populations that it can’t even confirm have recovered”.
“Hopefully, this doesn’t return ICCAT to the situation it was in a decade ago, when an international trade ban was being considered,” she told AFP.
In 2010, the UN body governing trade in endangered species considered a motion to outlaw international sales of eastern Atlantic tuna, which can fetch tens of thousands of dollars per fish. The motion failed.
But ICCAT did impose stricter quotas on member nations and cracked down on illegal fishing, especially off North Africa’s Mediterranean coast.
Atlantic bluefin tuna is a culinary mainstay of sushi and sashimi in Japan and can fetch tens of thousands of dollars per fish
Atlantic bluefin tuna is a culinary mainstay of sushi and sashimi in Japan and can fetch tens of thousands of dollars per fish
The measures worked better and more quickly than expected, bringing the species to the edge of full recovery.
Rachel Hopkins, an officer for Global Tuna Conservation at the Pew Charitable Trusts, a Philadelphia-based non-profit organization, said, “We were expecting the scientists to come back after the stock assessment and say, ‘eastern bluefin tuna has recovered’.”
But when scientists ran projections, not all showed continued growth over the next five years.
“Because of that — and other uncertainties around the science — they could not declare that the stocks had recovered,” Hopkins added.
Nor did ICCAT’S science panel estimate the current recovery status, as it normally does.
However, based on the most recent assessment in 2015, it did project population changes over the next five years under different quota scenarios.
The committee concluded that annual quotas must be held to no more than 28,000 tons per year to guarantee a 50 percent chance that stocks would continue to expand.
And yet, it advised that the quota be gradually increased to 36,000 tons by 2020.
“It is surprising and concerning to us that the scientists made this recommendation despite the uncertainty,” said Hopkins.