PERU fishing with guts to report…
The Executive Director of the Fisheries Commission Western and Central Pacific (WCPFC) warns that tuna stocks are at a dangerous level and getting worse. However, he argues that the situation "is not irretrievable."
“The Pacific bluefin tuna is, in my opinion, at greater risk. It is around 3% of their original spawning biomass, so the amount of adult fish in the water that can spawn […] Is in a very dangerous level”Said the Manager of the WCPFC, Glenn Hurry, told AFP.
Hurry details that other species are also depleted bigeye tuna, which is below the critical level of about 20% of the spawning biomass originally, the skipjack tuna and yellowfin, which is below the 40% the spawning biomass originally.
In this situation, Hurry applauds Japan plans to propose a 50% cut for catches of young bluefin tuna in the western and central Pacific, implying a historic change for safeguarding endangered species.
However, considering that more difficult decisions must be made, and admits that for small countries that are dependent on the fishing industry will be harder to reduce their catches.
With too many boats chasing too few fish catch and the Pacific island nations said in June that 33% would increase the fees charged to tuna vessels entering their waters. They argued then that they had taken this decision after considering that foreign fishing vessels are not doing enough to conserve fish stocks.
The eight countries involved, members of the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA), control the waters in which more than half of skipjack tuna in the world, the most common variety is packaged.
Since January 1, 2015, the PNA will raise the rate of fishing days for fleets calls “distant water” from as far away as Europe, China, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, USD 6,000 to USD 8,000.
SOURCE: Fis.com
