World fish stocks falling to crisis levels

Over thousands of springtimes, as far back as Homer’s Odyssey, the fishermen of Favignana 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, said.

For decades, he said, the world has moved blindly toward a precipice. “We have been confronted with signs and warnings and a clear view of the danger. And now we have fallen off. We may deserve it, but our children do not.”

Safina reflected views heard in many parts of North America and Europe, from environmental activists to government-funded specialists charged with helping to set fishing limits.

Some are more optimistic, arguing that careful management can restore stocks to sustainable levels, but none dispute that urgent action is essential.

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 €119,900 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 under-reported its catch.

A later study by Ran Myers and Boris Worm of Nova Scotia’s Dalhousie University reported drops of 90% among critical stocks.

Specialists see damage from pollution, silt runoffs from over-engineered river systems, and the still uncertain impact of global warning.

Tuna is a particular problem.

Such common 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.

Since the 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 programmes at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome, says he is deeply disturbed by nearly every trend he sees.

“Wherever you look, the numbers are going down,” he says.

Older methods of fishing 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 nets which catch whatever enters their broad openings. Huge numbers of untargeted fish are dumped back, dead in the water.

“Just one of these big tuna can be worth as much as the most expensive Mercedes-Benz,” Garcia said. “How do you expect criminal organisations not to want to be in on it?”