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
