A proposal put forward by Monaco and co-sponsored by the European Commission to list Bluefin Tuna as an endangered species is being met with fierce opposition from the fishing industry in Malta. International Animal Rescue in Malta, together with the Species Survival Network (SSN), has been lobbying in support of the proposal for the past year.
Whilst the industry and fishermen are urging the Malta Government to resist the proposal and support international trade, environmentalists are supporting the proposal which will be considered at a meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in March. If successful it will prohibit all trade in Bluefin Tuna.
There is currently an internal struggle between two European directorates - that of the environment headed by Stavros Dimas and the fisheries directorate headed by Joe Borg who is of Maltese origin. The Commission is seeking to find a compromise that will avoid a total ban. The environmentalists have the backing of a considerable number of European countries, including the UK and Germany, while Malta, Spain and Italy are the three main member states who are against the proposal and working hard to avoid a ban. In order to avoid friction between the two Commissioners, the Commission issued a brief statement saying that before a decision is taken it will consult all the member states about the proposal.
Max Farrugia of International Animal Rescue in Malta stated that SSN have been working on this issue and reports and scientific data have been prepared and collected. A lobbying group from SSN will be present during the CITES conference to brief the members and convince them to vote in support of a ban.
In Malta news of the Commission’s proposal has not gone down well with the fishing community and the industry, which last year exported about €100 million worth of tuna to the Japanese sushi market.
National Fishing Cooperative secretary Ray Bugeja hoped the government would oppose the proposal as it would mean the end of fisheries in Malta. “Tuna accounts for two-thirds of all the income of Maltese fishermen and if this is not permitted we might as well not go fishing any longer,” he said.
Mr Bugeja contested reports that tuna stocks were in decline and said this was “just what the environmentalists say”. When asked to elaborate on this statement and supply evidence Mr.Bugeja could not provide any studies to confirm this.
“This will be a deadly blow to an industry on which a lot of Maltese depend. It accounts for an injection of foreign currency into the economy and the deficit will surely be bigger without the industry,” Charles Azzopardi, an owner of tuna farms, said. “I cannot understand what all this hullabaloo over tuna is about,” When asked to give details about the industry M. Azzopardi stated that they spend more time filling compliance certificates than actually catching the tuna, and details are well known to the Commission.
Max Farrugia stated that during the coming six months environmentalists would continue to monitor what was going on in the industry and work for the listing of Bluefin Tuna in order to save the species. Max Farrugia stated that the ban might be a temporary one, say for two or three seasons, until the stock is healthy once more. Then the situation could be reviewed and, if it proves that the stock has recovered the industry could resume, but with very tight restrictions.