Commission fails to protect tuna
By Lisa Macdonald
The future of the critically endangered southern bluefin tuna is now even bleaker after the international body charged with its protection failed yet again to take action to save it.
The Commission for the Conservation of Bluefin Tuna meeting in Canberra last week adjourned on January 23 without setting any catch limits for 1998.
The Australian government's announcement, in response to Japan's demand that it be allowed to increase its catch, that it would not allow Japanese fishing vessels to operate in its exclusive economic zone until the commission set new quotas was hailed as a strong conservation stand by Australia media. Yet, as Greenpeace campaigner Darren Gladman points out, "after criticising Japan, Australia set itself the same quota as last year — business as usual".
"The tragic state of the southern bluefin tuna means that rejecting Japan from Australia's waters is not tough enough", said Gladman.
The southern bluefin tuna was listed as a critically endangered species by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature in 1996 after decades of overfishing had reduced the numbers of adult fish by as much as 98%.
Greenpeace is demanding the fishery be suspended immediately to allow stock levels to recover and its flagship Rainbow Warrior has been in the Great Australian Bight in a month-long campaign to both document the tuna fishery and take peaceful direct action to save the tuna.