Darwin's Nightmare
Written by Roberto Mielgo Bregazzi, December 14th, 2006

The 15^th Special Meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT) held in Dubrovnik from the 17^th to the 26^th November 2006, has been unsuccessful in the adoption of measures both towards the protection of BlueFin Tuna (Thunnus thynnus) and regarding the economic viability of its Mediterranean and Atlantic fisheries.

The international scientific community, through SCRS (ICCAT’s consultative body formed by marine biologists from over 48 countries) clearly and conclusively defined the parameters for a sustainable fishery of BlueFin Tuna.

Not withstanding a fiercely effective policy against illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing (I/U/U) by ICCAT’s member states, the SCRS asked for a firm compromise on behalf of the latter to reduce their captures to a maximum of 15.000 tonnes per year during the next four fishing seasons in Mediterranean and Eastern Atlantic waters. The most efficient restrictions would involve a minimum permissible size set at 30 kilos, with no exceptions of any kind and the total closure of fisheries during the months of May, June and July.

In reference to Dr. Bill T. Hogart, head of the American delegation and ICCAT’s Chairman, the SCRS recommendations were scornfully described as “Plan Kill Bill 3” by the EU spokesman who, in a rather uninspiring display of oratory and openly mocking the SCRS findings, ended up imposing the possibilistic sophisms of the great French-Hispanic-Japanese fishing lobby which controls over 60% of BlueFin Tuna fishing in the Mediterranean.

Thus, the interests of such lobby will not only be untouched by such measures, but furthermore strengthened strategically. Almost 100% of its activity takes place in Egyptian, Cypriot, Turkish, Maltese and Libyan waters between the 1^st of May and the 20^th of June. The closure proposed by the EU will do little to restrict the huge market influence exerted by a small group of cooperate fishing industries with a clear monopolistic agenda.
 

Such lobby has also transferred its BlueFin Tuna fishing and ranching activities from the SE of Spain, previously subsidised by the EU through IFOP funds, towards Central and Eastern Mediterranean where it now enjoys important logistical and naval resources so as to better monopolise fish held in high waters and to process it on board, with the due consent of countries such as Libya.

The Libyan regime, which shamelessly claims being incapable of implementing EU proposed management and control guidelines within the 60 miles of its so called “Fishing Protection Zone” now demands from ICCAT that its yearly BlueFin Tuna national quota should be raised up to some 3.500 tonnes in 2007!
 

Beyond the technical analysis of the EU recommendations adopted by ICCAT (Norway, USA and Canada against) which have received ample coverage in the international media, such a chaotic accumulation of short sighted inconsistencies of dreadful environmental consequences demands that management and control policies applicable to the future exploitation of finite fishing resources are no longer dictated by the representatives of a corporate sector which is clearly incapable of self regulating its activity in a sustainable manner, both in economic terms as well as from the point of view of the mere survival of a species already severely harmed by years of relentless over-fishing.

Nonetheless, and regardless of the ample evidence demonstrating that the rate of real captures of BlueFin Tuna in recent times has surpassed ICCAT quotas by over 18.000 tonnes a year, the latter, at the EU’s initiative, has not only declared a general amnesty for all of those involved in such looting of resources and market saturation, but it even refuses to promote an investigative committee on this issue.

Such an attitude erodes the credibility of an organization that was founded 40 years ago as well as its guiding principles, condemning itself to being both a witness and accomplice to the theft of over €2.500 million in illicit sales of BlueFin Tuna, primarily in the Japanese market, where national strategic reserves of frozen tuna were calculated in August of 2006 to be in the region of 21.000 tonnes, pending other quantities distributed around the south-east of Asia and in deep-freeze reefer vessels at sea.

All in all, the EU’s Directorate-General for Fisheries and Maritime Affairs, through its commissioner Joe Borg, seems proud of having imposed a realistic agreement on the sustainable management of this natural resource.

Surely, pressures exerted from Tokyo on the delegation led by Miyahara Massanori by the Japanese Ministry of Finance, Industry and Commerce as well as in Dubrovnik itself by certain Japanese barons, were decisive during these negotiations, to which Japan arrived lecturing on sustainability and traceability only to be tamed once its bluff was clear for all to see.

However, it is no less true that neither the Europeans nor the Japanese are still ready to consider the devastating consequences that are likely to follow from this environmental, political and economic barbarity imposed in defiance of public opinion, the international scientific community, the European Parliament and some EU member states.

Following the critical responses led by some EU member states, groups within the fishing industry, distributors, merchandisers, environmental and conservationist organizations during the past week, the plan designed by the EU’s Directorate-General for Fisheries and Maritime Affairs resembles a clockwork bomb.

In the absence of any restrictive measures, it will explode just before the start of the fishing season in Turkish waters, May 2007, once the leaders of this charade by then have agreed on how to share the loot/quotas per countries, some of which like Algeria have planned for 24 new tuna purse seinners.

It is worth highlighting the complacent reaction on behalf of the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, far more concerned with securing its own NAFO and Arcachon fishing agreements than with its own national and Mediterranean tuna industry whilst backing a whole set of measures that, if finally ratified by the EU, will probably imply the ultimate disappearance of the Balearic/Alboran BlueFin Tuna fishery, by far the most efficiently surveyed of those in existence.

Also, with and objective problem of frozen BlueFin Tuna over-stock, the great Japanese merchants now need to optimise their such stock by firstly drastically reducing tonnages stored in freezing chambers at -60ºC, and secondly by quickly funnelling stocks with a prompt sell by date into low cost, low quality markets.

Though in fact proposed Total Allowed Catches (TAC) of BlueFin Tuna are reduced from 32.000 to 29.500 tonnes for 2007, it is unlikely that production prices for the fishing industry will rise next year above currently set prices in the region of €3,25 to €4,50 per kilogram of live BlueFin Tuna transferred into cages at sea.

In parallel, first sale prices in Japan, both for fresh and frozen, could well rise in yens due to the foreseeable production cuts of the Japanese fleets operating in Atlantic and Australian basins, though this need not translate into an increase in profits for BlueFin Tuna ranches in the Mediterranean given the persistent strength of the Euro against the Japanese currency.

Meanwhile, and in an apparently contradictory manner, end-consumer prices for sashimi in Japan may well escalate 11% to 20% depending on the quality of the product.

This seems to be pertinently corroborated by the fact that, for the first time in Japan, sashimi has become an integral part in the calculus of Consumer Price Indexes, at a moment when the Japanese economy seems willing to overcome long years of deflation and economic stagnation.

If production prices per kilogram of transferred live BlueFin Tuna at sea in 2007 remain at current levels, the EU Mediterranean tuna purse-seining fleets will be unable to ever break-even in the less than likely scenario of a scrupulous adherence to shrinking national TACs yet to be assigned by the EU for 2007.

For this reason, as in past years, these fleets will be forced once more to over-fish in order to comfortably pay for increasing overheads and cope with stringent amortisation schedules.

Equally, laundering of illegal BlueFin Tuna catches through some ranches of dubious reputation will continue to offer a flow of supplies to markets unscrupulously incompliant with current strict import and re-export policies by the well known double consignment method undercover of a same ICCAT statistical document.

Finally, it would appear that the European and North American markets (increasingly aware of issues regarding sustainable fishing) will be much more demanding in terms of the absolute traceability of the product reaching its final consumer destination.

To this we may add other predictable factors regarding the direct boycott of sashimi in such markets promoted by powerful consumer associations, environmental and conservation organizations which will surely have an effect on approximately 20% of the total circulating commodity.

China, Taiwan, Korea and Thailand, with an established market of over 100 million potential sashimi consumers and in the wake of a “democratisation of sushi consumption”, will become the final destination of what is now kindly termed as “Grey Production”.

The scenario is reminiscent of a banana republic at the mercy of huge corporations devoid of any scruples and whose purpose is no other than the systematic looting of natural resources in exchange for tips and spoils. During the fishing campaign of 2006 in Libyan waters, for instance, in which 11.000 tonnes of BlueFin Tuna were ravaged, some 4.000 African immigrants huddled in timber rafts and boats managed to cross the Central Mediterranean to Malta and Sicily, some of them towed by the cages transporting the fish that was looted from their own home waters.

In Malta, a recent member of the EU, the BlueFin Tuna biomass stocked in its five ranches reached a shocking 4.750 tonnes in 2006, all captured in Libyan waters.

“Darwin’s nightmare 2”, as proposed by the officers in Brussels, is thus no more than a footnote to a drama occurring in real time which will end by eradicating 3.000 years of history, culture and tradition, shared in a sustainable manner by all the coastal regions of the Mare Nostrum.

Surely such a scandal should be the guiding theme in the next European summit of Agriculture and Fisheries ministers to be held on the 19^th and 20^th of December, which will either ratify or reject the recommendations put forward to all contracting parties by ICCAT. Historically, this may well be the most relevant decision such ministers may adopt in their political careers.

The scale of what is at stake is so vast that even the next EU summit for Environmental ministers should denounce and halt “Darwin’s nightmare 2” in allegiance to its legitimate right of environmental interference in such issues. This would spare the EU the embarrassment of others elevating the charges to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

Nonetheless, not all is lost in this unequal struggle. It is still possible to salvage the most ancient of fisheries. New active policies for the revaluation of these fisheries, a new vision of their economy and social intricacies are now more necessary than ever before. Norway, for example, proposed that a certain quota of BlueFin Tuna should be assigned to that country, precisely in order to prevent its capture. Other countries, other peoples, will certainly share these concerns and will express them loud and clear at the summit of all the tuna Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (RFMO) in Kobe, Japan, come January 2007.

It is now time that public opinion joins this cause, which is also ours, the cause of those who proudly love BlueFin Tuna and who wish to protect its environment.

Written by Roberto Mielgo Bregazzi