Backers of a ban, the European Commission and the United States both regretted the result, with the Commission warning the consequences could be catastrophic for the future of the species.

After aggressive lobbying by the Japanese, the controversial proposal was crushed at a meeting in Doha of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

The proposal, which had been put forward by Monaco with the backing of the United States and European Union, had needed the support of two thirds of the nations present.

In the end, there were 68 votes against the measure, 20 in favour and 30 abstentions.

"We welcome the rejection" of a ban on cross-border trade of bluefin caught in the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic as well as an amendment to allow a moratorium on the ban, a Japanese foreign ministry statement said.

"We will continue our efforts to get understanding of our country's position" so that the rejection will be adopted at a general meeting on March 24-25, it added.

US Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish and Wildlife and Parks Tom Strickland lamented the vote as "a setback for the Atlantic bluefin tuna," but vowed to "keep fighting" for the sustainable management of the fishery.

The European Commission warned that rejecting the ban threatened the species with extinction.

"If action is not taken, there is a very serious danger that the bluefin will no longer exist," said the EU's Environmental Commissioner Janez Potoznik in Brussels.

Patrick van Klaveren, head of the Monaco delegation, was even more pessimistic.

"It will not be CITES that is the ruin of professional (fisheries), it will be nature that lays down the sanction, and it will be beyond appeal," he said.

Environmental groups and experts also slammed the result.

"The abject failure of governments here to protect Atlantic bluefin tuna spells disaster for its future and sets the species on a pathway to extinction," said Oliver Knowles of Greenpeace International.

Sue Lieberman, policy director for the Pew Environment Group in Washington, called the decision "very disappointing and very irresponsible."

The bluefin's fate was now in the hands of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), the inter-governmental group responsible for managing bluefin stocks.

"This is the very body that drove the species to the disastrous state it is in now" by failing to enforce its own quotas, Liberman said.

Monaco's Van Kaveren recalled that a proposed Atlantic bluefin ban was withdrawn from CITES in 1992 after ICCAT promised stricter oversight.

"The result is that the reproductive capacity has dropped from 200,000 to 60,000 in 20 years, tunas are half as small, and illegal fishing has tripled," he said.

Former ICCAT president Masonori Miyahara, now head of Japan's delegation and the country's top fisheries official, acknowledged there had been shortcomings with ICATT in the past.

"We have heavy homework with ICCAT now," he told AFP.

"We made the commitment to ensure the recovery of the stock with specific measures and restrictions."

Last November, ICCAT agreed to cut its catch for bluefin tuna in the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean regions by 40 percent, from 22,000 tonnes in 2009 to 13,500 in 2010.

Industrial-scale harvesting on the high seas has caused bluefin stocks to plummet by up to 80 percent in the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic, the two regions which would have been affected by the ban.

A single 220-kilo (485-pound) fish can fetch 160,000 dollars (120,000 euros) at auction in Japan, which consumes three quarters of all bluefin caught in the world, mainly as sushi and sashimi.

Meanwhile, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) warned that another expensive delicacy, caviar, had pushed sturgeon into the most threatened creature on the planet.

"Four species are now possibly extinct," it said in a report on the conference sidelines.

earlier related report
French tuna fishermen fear for livelihood
Sete, France (AFP) March 18, 2010 - Efforts to ban bluefin tuna fishing hit a hitch on Thursday, but French fishermen who make their living from the threatened species are already resigned to the end of their trade.

At a meeting in Doha, the UN body overseeing commerce in endangered wildlife, CITES, rejected a proposal to outlaw international trade in eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna, a sushi mainstay in Japan.

But in Sete, southern France, Bertrand Wendling, head of an organisation which groups the 11 tuna boats fishing in the area, has doubts about their future due to lower quotas.

The rejection of a ban "is a load off our mind, but the whole issue is not settled," he said.

"In 2005, we were fishing for 11 months out of 12, this year the season will only last a month," from May to June, he said. "There are just 17 boats at sea," compared to 28 in 2009 and 36 in 2008.

The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) has slashed the quota from 22,000 tons in 2009, to 13,500 tons in 2010, of which France is allocated just over 2,000 tons.

Despite the failure of Monaco's attempt to classify bluefin tuna as under threat of extinction, those involved in the industry say that dramatically falling revenues mean fishermen can no longer make a living from the bluefin.

Raphael Scannapieco, one of the main shipowners in the Sete area, has seen turnover fall to just 500,000 euros (680,000 dollars) this year, down from three million in 2007.

In May, the newly reduced quota will mean that one of his two ships will have to remain docked at port.

Some fishermen have taken to Libyan waters where there is a more plentiful supply and where checks are less rigorous, but ICCAT has now banned fishermen from doubling up Libyan and French quotas, Wendling said.

"There is no way to adapt: the boats are too small to fish tropical tuna and too big to fish other species," he said.

The government has proposed to compensate those who permanently retire their ships with up to two million euros per vessel but many fishermen say this is insufficient. Only seven boats have been cashed in under the scheme.

Some fishermen have talked of casting their nets as far afield as the Pacific and the Indian Ocean for other fish species. Others are eyeing sardines and anchovies or seeking licences for other small-scale fishing ventures.

However, despite the alternatives, the fishing industry as a whole is under threat from "all these environmentalists", said Henri Gronzio, president of the Sete regional fishermen's committee.

The effect of new restrictions is already being felt in Sete with a 25 percent drop in the number of those directly or indirectly employed by the industry, from about 1,000 in 2006 to 750 this year, town authorities say.

"Adapting is not easy either for the owner or the crew", acknowledged Philippe Mauguin, a senior official at the farms and fisheries ministry, which has promised to help those making changes.

del.icio.us	Digg	Reddit
YahooMyWeb	Google	Facebook

Memory Foam Mattress Review

SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS Solar Energy Solutions Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ... Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News