Bluefin tuna: endangered and overfished

UPDATE:  See this post.

This week delegates at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) consider a proposal on the table for a complete ban on international trade of the bluefin tuna to allow stocks to regenerate.   Clearly, the time has come to ban the fishing of bluefish tuna, but a number of countries refuse to act responsibly.  In this post, we are going to name and shame these lousy global citizens.

NPR reports:

. . .. a ban on fishing bluefish tuna, it is necessary because the Atlantic bluefin is a migratory species that swims from the western Atlantic to the Mediterranean — putting it beyond any one country's border.  Compounding the tuna's plight is the growing threat from illegal fishing fleets and the failure of existing measures to keep the population sustainable. Patrick Van Klaveren, a delegate with the Monaco delegation. "With bluefin tuna, it's not a question of 10 or 20 years but five or six years or less to see the stock collapse."

When a fish stock "collapses" it may not come back -- ever.  Just ask a Newfoundland Atlantic Cod fisherman.  Atlantic Cod was plentiful off the Grand Banks until the fishery collapsed in the mid-1990s.

Bluefish tuna is loaded with mercury, so it's a wonder that so many people want to eat the stuff. 

RESPONSIBLE GLOBAL CITIZENS

• Monaco - "the sponsor of the proposed ban on the export of Atlantic bluefin tuna — says numbers have fallen by nearly 75 percent since 1957." (NPR)
• United States - Supporter of the ban
• Eurpean Union - Supporter of the ban

DISGRACEFUL GLOBAL CITIZENS

• China - believed to be opposed to the ban (AP)
• Canada- believed to be opposed to the ban (AP)
• Australia - "backed a weakened proposal at the 175-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species that would regulate the trade but not ban it outright." (AP)  
• New Zealand - Ministry of Fisheries wants to increase New Zealand's quota from 420 to 532 tonnes, partly because it was allocated smaller limits than other countries in previous years. (RNZ)
• Peru - backed a weakened proposal
• Spain, Greece and Malta - have significant tuna industries; they oppose the ban.
• Japan - Japanese have proposed that the tuna stocks be managed regionally, an approach conservationists say wouldn't work since the fish cross international borders... Japan won’t comply with a total ban, and would instead prefer a fishing quota....   Japan, meanwhile, hopes to fend off the ban by enlisting the support of developing nations in Africa and Latin America. Tokyo said that even if a ban is implemented, it could use a treaty technicality to opt out of the agreement by expressing “reservations,” and would then continue to import from other countries.   (NPR)  

In Japanese the word for shame or disgrace is chijoku.  

Certain other countries listed above have far smaller tuna fleets than Japan, yet have nevertheless failed to voice unequivocal support for a ban.  Arguably these countries are the most chijoku of all.
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Illustrations from How to draw a tuna.