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Global group backs off tight tuna limits
By Richard Gaines
Staff Writer The Gloucester Daily Times
Thu Dec 02, 2010, 11:17 PM EST
The international commission charged with managing the highly migratory, high-priced Atlantic bluefin tuna has pulled back in setting 2011 catch limits for both sides of the ocean — the overfished and under-regulated coasts of Europe, and the more lightly fished stable west, along America's East Coast.
On this side, bluefin are caught throughout the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank and landed in Gloucester and New Bedford, among other ports, primarily with longlines and harpoons.
On the other side, bluefin are herded like cattle, ranched and farmed after capture.
The quota levels after a week of face-to-face but closed-door deliberations in Paris by delegates from the 48 member nations of ICCAT — the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna — hardly distinguished between the two stocks despite dramatically different sizes, strengths, fishing methods, techniques and degrees of commitment to conservation of the most prized of the of all protein foods.
The harvest of bluefin in the eastern Atlantic is roughly 10 times the harvest in the west.
The commission set the total allowable catch for the eastern stock at 12.90 metric tons, a 9.5 percent contraction, and the western stock — including New England and the rest of the East Coast — at 1,750 metric tons, a 2.9 percent reduction even though ICCAT's scientific research arm published a 2010 stock survey showing the western Atlantic stock of bluefin is completely rebuilt, using a model employed by ICCAT for the past 12 years.
The commission, however, rejected more extreme cutbacks proposed by the U.S. delegation headed by NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco, the Pew Environment Group, Greenpeace, the Center for Biologicial Diversity and other environmental non-government organizations.
"This is a final mayday call for tuna, ICCAT must act now to close the fishery," Greenpeace France announced.
The World Wildlife Federation found "greed and mismanagement," and Oceana described the final allocations as "laughable."
'Sellout' of fishermen
But the American Bluefin Tuna Association saw a sellout of U.S. commercial fishing interests, with Lubchenco orchestrating a cutback in U.S. tuna quota while Mexico and Canada were "held harmless."
Based on the stock survey tables, said Richard Ruais, executive director of the tuna association, the rebuilt stock could support a quota of 2,585 metric tons.
"While ultimately, the cut was 'only' 50 tons, more importantly NOAA squandered a golden opportunity to increase the western Atlantic total allowable catch by as much as 450 tons," he said. "The stock assessment justified the increase."
Ruais said the limits will "cause unnecessary and severe economic injury and loss of jobs throughout the tuna fishery and coastal communities ... especially those in New England ... that support it."
Lubchenco's decision to seek more radical cuts in the catch of the stronger of the two stocks also frustrated a bipartisan, bicameral coalition of federal lawmakers headed by Sen. Olympia Snowe, a Maine Republican, and Massachusetts Democratic congressmen Barney Frank and John Tierney, who had signed a Nov. 18 letter to Lubchenco, urging her to advocate for increased quotas for the U.S. fleets.
"For years," the congressional letter said, "the U.S. has led the world in conservation efforts of highly migratory species and our actions have shown tremendous benefits to stocks like Atlantic swordfish, which is currently rebuilt and experiencing drastically lower levels of bycatch in the U.S. fishery.
"We are also beginning to see signs of similar success in the western Atlantic bluefin tuna stock," the lawmakers wrote.
Teachable moment lost
They also urged the Obama administration to use the improved health of the western stock to "demonstrate to fishermen that, when strict conservation measures result in scientifically-based estimates of positive rebuilding trends and show an increase in harvest is sustainable, they will be rewarded for their sacrifice."
But Lubchenco lined up more closely to the perspective of the groups lobbying to end tuna fishing entirely, or suppress it to achieve the fastest restoration of the stocks, overlooking the dramatically different stations occupied by the western and eastern stocks.
Sen. Snowe expressed special frustration at the lack of discrimination.
"By suggesting that reductions in total allowable catch of bluefin tuna are warranted in both the eastern and western Atlantic," she said in response to Lubchenco's announced policy goal in Paris, "NOAA is effectively selling out U.S. fishermen who for years have adhered to strict catch limits and conservation measures now proven to have boosted the health of the bluefin population."
In response to questions by the Times, Connie Barclay, Lubchenco's spokeswoman, cited a recovery model that has not been used as a baseline by ICCAT, and said this other scenario, "while equally probable" as the one used by ICCAT, leads to a less optimistic status for the big fish.
"Under this high recruitment scenario," Barclay added, "the western stock is in bad shape."
Summer reports
Yet anecdotal reports from late summer through recent weeks have found unprecedented concentrations of big bluefins throughout Georges Bank and the other offshore grounds from Gloucester, Boston and New Bedford boats. And those reports seem more consistent with the modeling used by ICCAT which found the western stock fully recovered.
The tuna association also alleged that NOAA, in a piece of diplomatic bargaining to secure the votes for the cut in the western catch, agreed to allow to "transfer to Canada" in 2011 and 2012 86.5 metric tons of tuna from its quota as "a special arrangement."
"This special deal," the tuna association wrote, "for all practical purposes, makes the western reduction harmless to Canadian fishermen.
"Why would our government set its priority to obtain more fish for the Mexicans and Canadians while offering to cut the quota for its own fishermen?" the group asked.
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