EU tightens control on bluefin tuna fisheries

The European Commission launched a major control campaign aimed at preventing a repeat of last year's overfishing of Mediterranean bluefin tuna by a number of EU Member States.

The plan will bring together the resources of the seven main Member States involved in the fishery – Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal and Spain – and will cover all stages in the market chain, including controls at sea, onshore, and at fattening farms.

The control campaign marks an unprecedented effort, in terms of both the scale of operations, and the technical means deployed. The Community Fisheries Control Agency will coordinate joint inspection and control activities involving 13 large patrol vessels, 36 coastal patrol vessels and 16 aircraft. There will be 14 campaigns at sea involving in all 30 inspectors, representing overall 160 patrol days. 25 joint inspections involving 50 inspectors are planned in the ports concerned. Commission inspectors will also be involved in 32 inspection visits both at sea and in ports.

As illustrated by a report published by the WWF, the whole fishery is plagued by overfishing by a fleet that keeps growing in size and efficiency - thanks also to 16 million Euro of EU fundings, as Oceana recently underlined.

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For more information:
European Commission press release
EU funding for tuna overexploitation
Crazy race for last Mediterranean tuna

Contaminants and marine megavertebrates - a workshop

'Contaminants and pathology in marine megavertebrates as environmental assessment tools' is the title of a workshop organized by University of Bologna on May, 8th, in Cesenatico, Italy. The meeting is organized in conjunction with Gruppo di Ricerca sui Grandi Vertebrati Pelagici.

Aim of the workshop is to focus on potential effects of pollutants on the health of marine megavertebrates. It will focus on different aspects of natural and anothropogenic pollutants and on suspected or proved connections with specific pathologies. Proceedings will be published on Endangered Species Research.

The workshop is open to students as well. Registration deadline is April, 30th.

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For more information:
http://www.eulasmo.org/content.asp?did=30233

EU funding for tuna overexploitation

Oceana – the international ocean conservation organisation – reports that millions of Euros have been allocated for the overexploitation of bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean, calls for the immediate closure of the Balearic fishing grounds, and criticises the contradictory measures adopted by implicated states.

According to Oceana, overcapacity in Mediterranean bluefin tuna fishery denounced by a WWF report (see 12 March post), has been financed by the EU with more than 16 million Euros. The EU purse seine fleets involved in this fishery are from Spain, France and Italy.

Oceana also stressed that management measures and actions by the governments participating in this kind of fishery do not correspond to the reality of the fleet and the state of bluefin tuna stocks.

Once again, scientific recommendations are being ignored. Excessive quotas are established, the fleets continue to fish in spawning grounds, undersized tunas are being caught, illegal vessels catch and land bluefin tuna in unauthorised ports, the fleets continue to ignore the assigned quotas and do not declare the catches.

Silvia Bonizzoni

(Photo by Oceana)

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For more information:
Oceana press release
Oceana website
WWF report
Mediterranean Conservation News - 12 March post

Ships dumping waste: illegal as of 2009

Dumping of waste by ships in the Mediterranean Sea will become illegal as of May 1, 2009, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said.

The new rules prohibit the ditching of "all plastics, including but not limited to synthetic ropes, synthetic fishing nets and plastic garbage bags and all other garbage, including paper products, rags, glass, metal, bottles, crockery, dunnage (loose material used in ship storage), lining and packing materials".

The application of International Maritime Organization measures had been suspended for years, until adequate garbage collection facilities were established in ports around the sea's coasts.

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For more information:
UNEP News

Trawling near the coasts of Greece

Bottom trawling, a fishing method that drags a large net across the sea floor, is a known threat to the marine environment.

Due to the disruptive nature of this method, the European Regulation currently in force across the Mediterranean forbids trawling closer than 1.5 nautical miles from the seashore.

The Hellenic Centre for Marine Research has also demonstrated that trawling is the least selective of all fishing gears, with an annual bycatch rate up to 44%. The Greek Ministry for Rural Development and Food, in its National Operational Plan for Fisheries 2007-2013, acknowledges that “most benthopelagic species are in a state of relative overfishing or overfishing”.

Despite the European regulation and scientific evidence the Greek Ministry for Rural Development and Food, itself, has recently decided to allow the use of trawling nets at a distance of only 1 nautical mile from the coast.

A coalition of Greek conservation organizations, including Archelon, Mediterranean SOS Network, MOM, Pelagos Cetacean Research Institute, Greenpeace and WWF Greece, is calling for the immediate reversal of this decision, to prevent the destruction of coastal ecosystems and ensure sustainability of fishing in the long term.

Silvia Bonizzoni

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For more information:
www.panda.org