Atlantic bluefin trade ban now vital as tuna commission fails to take action again

On Sunday, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) endorsed a
proposal from its chairs, the European Union (EU), Japan, Morocco and Tunisia to drop the 2010 eastern
bluefin quota from 19,500 tonnes to 13,500 tonnes, still far too high to enable stock recovery.

A key study presented to ICCAT showed that even a strictly enforced 8,000-tonne quota would only have a 50
percent chance of achieving a recovery in eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna stock by 2023, while another ICCAT
study showed that only a total fishing halt would yield significant chances of the bluefin population to recover
enough to no longer qualify for high-level trade restrictions by 2019.

“This reduction of allowable catch is not based on any particular scientific advice to recover the stock with
high probability – it is just an arbitrary political measure and only for one year,” said Dr. Robert Rangeley, Vice President Atlantic Region, WWF-Canada. “The Canadian government’s support for ICCAT’s decision willfully ignores that organizations history of failure. Canada, of all countries, has witnessed the cost of ineffective management of our cod stocks. We cannot afford to repeat these mistakes.”

Member countries of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora
(CITES) will now be called upon to line up behind global trade restrictions on Atlantic bluefin tuna when they
meet next March in Doha, Qatar. During this meeting, CITES will consider a Principality of Monaco proposal
that bluefin be listed for the highest level of trade restrictions.

“Canada is a bluefin tuna fishing nation and a member of ICCAT and CITES,” said Dr. Rangeley. “Bluefin
meets the listing criteria for CITES Appendix I and an Atlantic wide moratorium is the only way to save this
stock from collapse now, so we need Canada to follow the science and advocate for the Atlantic bluefin tuna
to be listed in Appendix 1.”

WWF had lobbied the meeting for a fishing suspension and determined action against illegal fishing,
estimated to considerably inflate the most recent (2008) catch estimates of 34,120 tonnes.

Dr. Sergi Tudela, Head of Fisheries at WWF Mediterranean, attended the meeting and called on CITES
member countries “not to be fooled by ICCAT’s promises to save Atlantic bluefin tuna in the coming years.
We have seen too many empty promises in ICCAT’s 40 years of not conserving tuna. The tuna commission
has failed in the most crucial moment of its history. Now is the time for action elsewhere”.

Adding more fuel to the compelling case of ICCAT’s overall failure, contracting parties endorsed a further two years of use by Morocco of illegal driftnets to catch swordfish. The nets, known widely as ‘walls of death’, kill 4,000 dolphins and 25,000 sharks in Mediterranean waters every year.

Bans on driftnets are covered in a large array of international agreements dating back to 1992 and including
the United Nations, ICCAT, the EU – which is the main market for the Moroccan swordfish, and Morocco itself.

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For more information or to set up an interview:
Stacey McCarthy
Communications Specialist, WWF-Canada
Tel. 902.482.1105, ext 41
Cell: 902.209.6457
Email: [email protected]

Notes to editor
– Interviews, footage, photos available on request.
– More information at www.panda.org/tuna