Guest guest Posted July 22, 2004 Report Share Posted July 22, 2004 This message was forwarded to you by yitzeling. Comment from sender: This article is from The Star Online URL: http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2004/7/20/features/8453181 & sec=f\ eatures ________________________ Tuesday July 20, 2004 Vanishing tuna By MORT ROSENBLUM Over-fishing to feed the world’s appetite for tuna has pushed stocks down to critical level, MORT ROSENBLUM reports. OVER thousands of years, as far back as Homer’s Odyssey, the fishermen of Favignana in Italy have battled giant bluefin tuna lured into vast chambers of intricate netting. This year, the nets were empty. The ancient mattanzas (slaughters) of Atlantic tuna that come to spawn in the Mediterranean are now all but gone. The craving for sashimi in Japan and the world beyond has taken its toll, but that is only part of it. Marine biologists say not only bluefin tuna but also other fish stocks are plummeting across the world, upsetting delicate natural food chains. Some fear irreversible damage has already been done. Even worse, international law experts add, little is being done to stop it. Despite all the evidence, high-tech fleets probe the last deepwater refuges, hardly troubled by authorities. Legal quotas are too high, specialists say, and in any case are often pointless because too many crews lie about their catch. “This is no sudden crash, but rather an extremely slow-speed fatal collision,” Carl Safina, founder of the conservationist Blue Ocean Institute on Long Island in New York, told The Associated Press. Scientists blame worldwide overfishing by private fleets, often with their governments’ complicity. Even where laws and accords are in place, they say, there is seldom more than token enforcement. With a single bluefin worth as much as US$150,000 (RM570,000) on the Tokyo market, Italian and Russian organised crime is now involved, UN experts say. University of British Columbia researchers sounded the alarm in 2001, reporting that some fish populations had fallen by as much as 85%. They said China drastically underreported its catch. A later study by Ran Myers and Boris Worm of Nova Scotia’s Dalhousie University reported drops of 90% among critical stocks. That brought protests from fishing industry officials, who cited other surveys showing smaller declines. “This is only quibbling over numbers,” Safina said. “If it is 60% now and not 9%, than just wait five years.” Beyond uncontrolled fishing, specialists see damage from pollution, silt runoffs from over-engineered river systems, and the still uncertain impact of global warning. Prized catch Such common tuna varieties as skipjack, found canned in supermarkets, fetch lower prices and are not in immediate danger. But prized bluefins are hunted down for sophisticated worldwide networks of Japanese buyers. About 20% of the world’s dwindling supply is caught in the Mediterranean, where tuna stocks are most threatened. And bluefin are also endangered in the Atlantic and Pacific. The competition is fierce. At remote ports in Maine, boats that bring in bluefin find Japanese agents on their cell phones, eager to bid for the fish and ship them to Tokyo in coffin-like containers packed with ice. Since these giant tuna might live 30 years, their plight affects an entire complex food chain, which already suffers from other types of overfishing. In the early 1950s, the global tuna catch was less than 500,000 tons. By 2001, it had surpassed 3.7 million tons. Serge Garcia, a Frenchman who supervises fish-monitoring programs at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome, says he’s deeply disturbed by nearly every trend he sees. As a scientist who answers to each of the FAO’s member nations, he steers clear of advocacy. But, the evidence speaks for itself: “Wherever you look, the numbers are going down.” Garcia said the main problem is that since ocean fish cannot be accurately counted, no one can be certain about numbers. As a result, fishermen and conservationists push data to opposite extremes. But, he said, scientists have a clear idea of the downward trend. “I don’t think it is wise to wait until this is proven right beyond any doubt,” he said. “By then, it will be too late.” He calculated that fleets should be reduced by 30% to 40% to preserve stocks. The ancient methods of Favignana focused on single schools, in which the biggest fish habitually swim first. This assured a lucrative catch without damage to sustainability. Now most bluefin are caught on long lines. Other tuna are scooped up by purse-seine nets which catch whatever enters their broad openings. Huge numbers of untargeted fish are dumped back, dead in the water. Using almost weightless nylon-Kevlar lines up to 750m long and equipped with lights and tiny cameras, Garcia said, fisherman can locate giant old tuna hiding in underwater caves. Within 20 years, he predicted, only the wealthiest will be willing to pay the necessary prices for the best cuts of tuna. “It is the height of absurdity,” says marine biologist Chato Osio at the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) Mediterranean office in Rome. “Sicily sends its best tuna to Japan, and Sicilians eat inferior tuna they import from Asia.” Even if commercial boats respected Mediterranean quotas, he said, the annual 32,000-ton limit for tuna is already too high to protect the threatened fish. Tuna farms The WWF and other groups campaign for fishing moratoriums in sensitive areas as well as rigorous patrols to enforce quotas. Some experts put hope in tuna ranches, which since have grown fast since 1997. These are not breeding centres, as are common for salmon, but rather holding pens for wild tuna that are caught but not landed. At 30 Mediterranean sites, captured tuna are held in net corrals for five to 20 months until they fatten. Proponents say this allows prices to stabilise and adds more meat to the market. But in practice, the WWF says, tuna penning wreaks its own sorts of havoc by disrupting natural cycles and seasonality, and by opening new markets for tuna. These, a WWF report says, have “made the situation of wild stocks even more perilous.” Francesca Ottolunghi, a marine biologist who advises the Italian fishing industry, calls WWF’s positions too extreme. She predicts that farms will eventually raise tuna safely from eggs. But, like the environmentalists, she sees danger in illegal fishing. “This is the biggest problem,” Ottolunghi said. “Nobody has control. You can say anything you want, but there is no enforcement.” None of this is news to the Favignana fisherman, whose annual running of the tuna has dwindled from the mainstay of the world’s biggest cannery to a subsidised curiosity for tourists. Once celebrated as valiant holdouts of an ancient way of life, these men now survive on odd jobs and hang around the wharf exchanging tales of the good old days. A marked change began in the 1960s, when Japanese and Soviet trawlers began to prowl the Mediterranean. Now Koreans, Chinese and Taiwanese, among others, are major players. Last year, when the Favignana mattanza brought in bluefin, Japanese buyers snapped them up and shipped them to Tokyo. Sicilian markets offered cheaper cuts from less valuable types of tuna. This year, fishermen put their nets in the water but they came up empty. – AP <p> ________________________ Your one-stop information portal: The Star Online http://thestar.com.my http://biz.thestar.com.my http://classifieds.thestar.com.my http://cards.thestar.com.my http://search.thestar.com.my http://star-motoring.com http://star-space.com http://star-jobs.com http://star-ecentral.com http://star-techcentral.com 1995-2003 Star Publications (Malaysia) Bhd. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Star Publications is prohibited. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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