bluefin
Posted by Willie — 29 March 2010 at 6:11pm
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I've tried several times to write a 'wrap-up' blog for this year's CITES meeting. But usually I end up just banging my head against the keyboard in despair.
This CITES meeting was a turning point – the governments in the room decided that they weren't there to restrict trade to protect species, but rather there to protect trade as best they could. Nowhere was that more evident than the marine proposals.
Sharks were shafted, corals crushed, and bluefin obliterated, as the assembled governments played politics, and wrung their hands earnestly over the adverse economic effects of actually protecting any of these endangered species. Conveniently ignoring the fact that it's their inability to restrain trade which endangered them in the first place...
Posted by Willie — 19 March 2010 at 2:55pm
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A Steller's sea cow skeleton - first spotted by Europeans in 1741, they were driven to extinction within 30 years © CC Funkmonk
International co-operation is vital if we want to protect the plants and (particularly) animals that we share the planet with. They don't all have a very quantifiable value, and often those most at risk live in countries in the developing world where it is hard to balance the growing needs of the population with effective conservation measures. It's also, of course, rather rich to be lectured by the developed West/North on how to look after your flora and fauna when we have been so remiss ourselves.
Posted by Willie — 18 March 2010 at 4:13pm
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The breaking news today is that governments
at the CITES
meeting at Doha
have voted AGAINST a trade ban on Atlantic bluefin.
Words cannot express how frustrating this is.
The science and scientific backing is incontrovertible. The public will and
pressure is immense. The species could be commercially extinct within just a
few years.
Posted by Willie — 17 March 2010 at 10:44am
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The CITES meeting is now well underway in Doha, Qatar. Greenpeace is there, as are many other NGOs, and it’s clear that there is a very fishy focus for this meeting. As well as proposals to protect sharks and corals, Atlantic bluefin is the species on everyone’s mind. For a meeting concerned with the international trade in endangered species, it’s amazing how much of it could boil down to simple horse-trading.
This meeting, of course, is the chance to get an international trade ban on Atlantic bluefin, a measure that should protect the species from imminent commercial extinction.
Posted by jossc — 22 February 2010 at 6:44pm
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For those of you who missed Saturday's edition of one of Radio 4's most popular programmes, 'From Our Own Correspondent', you missed a great piece on the desperate plight of Pacific tuna. Focusing on overfishing by EU and Asian nations around the Cook Islands, it covered the story of our very own ship Esperanza busting a Japanese purse seining vessel which was fishing illegally in Cook Island waters.
You can listen to it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/fooc.
Posted by Willie — 12 February 2010 at 3:44pm
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Tuna, halibut and eels are as happy as this stingray following this week's developments © Clicksy
It’s been a busy week, for the fish.
There was the news that the UK’s biggest seafood suppliers have decided to stop supplying European eel and North Atlantic halibut. Both of these species are already listed on the IUCN’s redlist, but the fact that suppliers and retailers are increasingly delisting such species is testament to ongoing campaigning by the likes of Greenpeace, the Marine Conservation Society, and Fish2Fork – making sure that they know that serving up endangered fish species is simply no longer acceptable.
Posted by Willie — 8 February 2010 at 8:30pm
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Posted by Willie — 4 February 2010 at 12:17pm
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At last, France has officially announced support for an international trade ban on Atlantic bluefin. This is great news. It means that 23 out of the 27 EU countries now support the species being protected by CITES (the organisation which regulates trade in endangered species). It also means there is no longer any effective block to stop the EU reaching a common position (at a previous vote, it had been blocked by the Mediterranean countries).
Two of the main fishing nations, Italy and France are supporting the trade ban, and Italy has already declared it is suspending its own fishery. That is pretty momentous. It's as if the proverbial turkeys have just voted for Christmas by a landslide.
Posted by Willie — 31 January 2010 at 7:33pm
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Here’s a bit of hot gossip, that I am typing from Paris , where I’m with a gaggle of Greenpeace campaigners at a summit on sustainable seafood.
It seems that something is stirring in the Mediterranean . Bluefin followers will be familiar with the ‘will-they/won’t-they?’ saga that surrounds the EU countries and supporting and international ban on Atlantic bluefin.
Posted by Willie — 12 January 2010 at 6:36pm
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Well, they may not be shouting about it, but it certainly looks that way. Ironically 2010 has been declared by the UN as 'International Year of Biodiversity', yet alarm bells are ringing for one iconic species already.
In a remarkable contrast from last summer, and autumn, when the UK Government were keen to tell us all how committed they were to saving the bluefin at every possible opportunity, our ministers have gone strangely silent on the issue since the ICCAT meeting in November.