bluefin

Yesterday’s 'Inside Story' on Al Jazeera TV was all about the collapse of bluefin tuna stock in the Mediterannean. The 25 minute programme provided a facinating insight into the politics and greed of the serious overfishing which has left bluefin on the verge of extinction.

The crew of the Esperanza, still out patrolling the Pacific against the overfishing of tuna, just sent us this video update. They have been monitoring and confiscating fish aggregating devices (FADs) where ever they come across them. FADs are still being widely used by tuna fishing fleets throughout the Pacific Ocean - despite their use being illegal for most nations over the summer months.

First of all, apologies to any non-French speakers watching this video, because it's not going to make any sense. So why do I want you to see it? Well, it's more just as supporting evidence (see the transcript below), because this is the statement made by French President Nicolas Sarkozy on 16 July, in which he promised "complete French support regarding the listing of bluefin tuna to the international wild species convention, in order to ban any trade in this fish".

It's de rigueur in some quarters to dismiss France jokingly, as the Simpsons and some US political-types famously have done in the past. But the news today from Brussels suggests that the French government have made an embarrassing volte-face on bluefin tuna.

Breaking news just in from Brussels - despite all the doubts and concerns some of us have harboured over the past few weeks, it seems the EU Commission is throwing its weight squarely behind the call for an international ban on the trade of Atlantic bluefin tuna!

This is big news - actually let's make that BIG NEWS.

It's only a couple of days since the Esperanza set out on the Defending Our Pacific Tour, but already the crew are deeply engaged in the fight to save Pacific tuna from decimation.

Tuna are the main target of industrial fishing fleets from Asia, USA and the EU. Between them they took over 2.5 million tonnes last year alone - a totally unsustainable amount. And the indiscriminate nature of their fishing methods means that thousands of sharks and turtles also die needlessly in their nets.

A haul of giant bluefin caught off Scarborough in the 1930s © Prof Callum Roberts

As per the great British tradition, there was something fishy in yesterday's news: an interesting little snippet in PR Weekly, announcing that a new PR firm has been hired to work for Seafish.

Great news from the world of politics today for bluefin tuna, as reported in the Independent, although you might want it explaining a little.

The UK and French governments have both said that they will back a proposal by Monaco to have bluefin tuna listed by CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species).

With around 80 per cent of fish stocks in trouble, species driven to extinction and ecosystems on the brink of collapse, it's time to rethink how we harvest our oceans. This new video shows how Greenpeace has been encouraging retailers to clean up their seafood shelves - by switching to a sustainable seafood sourcing policy they can change the world's fisheries and help to protect the world's oceans.