Two thousand years ago, the Roman legions that conquered southern Europe relied heavily upon dried bluefin tuna. Unfortunately, this species of tuna, despite having survived the overwhelming demands of the Roman conquest may have finally met its match in the global appetite for sushi. The bluefin tuna can weigh as much as 1,500 lbs and can live as long as 40 years, making it a popular species choice for this purpose.
If environmentalists and marine scientists are correct in their prediction, the remaining stocks of bluefin tuna in the world, 90 percent of which are located in the Mediterranean could be on the verge of extinction, according to a marine biologist named Alain Fonteneau. Fonteneau is a marine biologist for the government run Institute for Development Research in Montpellier, France. According to Fonteneau, if we do not do anything to save the blue fin tuna now, we will fish the last of them out of the Mediterranean in five years time.
But not everyone seems willing to heed this warning. A week long international meeting to save the species ended in surprising arguments on Monday night, as officials in Europe thwarted a proposal by environmental groups and the United States to impose a partial moratorium on the fishing of blue fin tuna, drastically reducing catch quotas in the process.
Officials from 46 members of the ICCAT (International Consortium for the Conservation of the Atlantic Tunas) spent days behind closed doors in Marrakesh, Morocco, battling over a proposed rescue plan intended for the species. Several smaller ICCAT members like Panama and Guatemala had initially backed a proposal that was supported by environmental groups and the United States to halt all blue fin fishing for nine months out of the year, cracking down hard on anyone who should violate this moratorium. However, European officials eventually persuade them to adopt a reduced quota of 22,000 tons instead, for 2009, and then 19,950 tons in 2011, which will represent a sharp drop from the 61,000 tons last year, and this year's quota of 29,000. Unfortunately, this is still far above the 15,000 tons that marine scientists are advising to be the limit that can be fished without causing the entire species to go extinct.
The meeting has become quite a disaster, according to Sergi Tudela of the World Wildlife Fund, because many of the measures that are being adopted are going to drive the blue fin tuna to complete collapse, but the European officials do not seem to agree, contending that their quota plan was the best possible deal because it won the backing of the Mediterranean Arab countries, perceiving the ICCAT as something controlled by the major fishing powers in the world, including Canada, the United States, Japan and Europe.
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