Oceans campaigner Oliver Knowles, Greenpeace delegation lead at the recent ICCAT meeting in Paris, sums up his feelings about the rather poor outcome.
This year, ICCAT had the opportunity to do two things: rescue bluefin tuna from the edge of commercial extinction and salvage its reputation for inaction. It has now failed on both counts.
Once again, ICCAT's 10-day meeting has resulted in a new fishing quota for bluefin, this time of 12,900 tons - a tiny reduction on last year's quota of 13,500 tons. Come May, sanctioned by the very organisation which is supposed to "conserve" tuna, destructive purse-seine fishing vessels in the Mediterranean will cast their nets again on this hugely depleted species.
Let's put a marker down here and now - the governments and delegates at this ICCAT session must be noted in history as those people that have failed this magnificent species.