A proposal to ban international trade in Atlantic bluefin tuna, which is a sushi mainstay in Japan, has been rejected by a UN wildlife meeting.

Thursday's decision occurred after Japan, Canada and many poor nations opposed the measure on the grounds it would devastate fishing economies.

Monaco tabled the plan at the meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

Stocks have fallen by about 85% since the industrial fishing era began.

Monaco argued that the organisation responsible for managing the bluefin fishery - the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (Iccat) - had not implemented measures strict enough to ensure the species' survival.

Scientists and campaigners working with conservation organisations were disappointed with the outcome.

"We think it is quite a blow," said Glenn Sant, leader of the global marine programme with Traffic, the international wildlife trade monitoring network.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8574775.stm

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Predators of the bluefin tuna

Marine mammals, including killer whales and pilot whales, feed on the bluefin tuna. Other predators include sharks, other large predatory fishes, and seabirds.
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/gallery/descript/bluefintuna/bluefintuna.html
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There is a point at which some predators on the food chain miss out and as well as the bluefin tuna becoming extinct (a possibility), they, the predators are in danger of becoming extinct too... Well not all of then as there would be some mighty fight for survival. But all in all, we are stressing the natural order beyond borders where a major collapse of species is inevitable.

We have to look beyond our small brains. We "have chosen" to become in charge of this planet, but we're doing a lousy job at it... We mostly care about ourselves, eventually to our detriment.

Population "explosion" is one of the topics at present... It does not take Einstein to tell us that of nature which is under stress now, will be under more stress in the future... For example some people say there will be an increase of 50 per cent of population in Australia by 2050... In 2100, this will translate at tripling the population of now, when already there are stresses of habitation for humans and habitats for wildlife.

But the CSIRO is rosy about future development of selected crops... Selected crap more likely, as no matter what we do, more of the wild will be extinguished, and more fertilisers and pesticides will be needed, placing more stress on the natural processes with runoffs everywhere.

If by 2050 the population of humans on this planet is 9 billions or thereabout, by 2100, even with draconian one child policy like that of China, we'll be 12.5 billions. about 9 times the population of humans when I was born. Freaky and insane. I'll be long gone by then...

See toon at top. Peace.

The internet is becoming the dominant factor overall in the global trade in protected species," Paul Todd of the International Fund for Animal Welfare was quoted as saying by the Associated Press news agency.

He said thousands of endangered species are regularly traded on the internet, as buyers and sellers take advantage of the anonymity - and vast global market - the world wide web can offer.

Those trying to police illegal sales say the size of problem is almost impossible to estimate. They say the US is the biggest market, but that Europe, China, Russia and Australia also play a large part.

On Sunday, delegates voted to ban all international trade in a rare type of Iranian salamander, the Kaiser's spotted newt, which the World Wildlife Fund says has been devastated by the internet trade.

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see toon at top...

North Sea fishermen are throwing away up to half of all the fish they catch every year in what campaigners say is a chronic waste of food.

Almost a million dead and dying fish are discarded at sea each year, according to a campaign calling for Europe's Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) to be comprehensively reformed. Most are tossed overboard because they are too small, of the wrong species or will take fishing boats over their quotas, making it illegal to land them.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, the food campaigner and celebrity chef, was so appalled at learning of the level of discards, describing it as an "insane waste", that he has launched a campaign to get the practice banned.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/news/north-sea-fisheries-madness-2137103.html

see toon at top...

The global consumption of fish has hit a record high, reaching an average of 17kg per person, a UN report has shown.

Fisheries and aquaculture supplied the world with about 145m tonnes in 2009, providing about 16% of the population's animal protein intake.

The findings published by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) also stressed that the status of global fish stocks had not improved.

It said that about 32% were overexploited, depleted or recovering.

"That there has been no improvement in the status of stocks is a matter of great concern," said Richard Grainger, one of the report's authors and FAO senior fish expert.

"The percentage of overexploitation needs to go down, although at least we seem to reaching a plateau," he observed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12334859

at least, if my memory is correct, in Gone Fishin', Nino Culotta was drinking more beer than catching fish... see toon at top.

What's particularly scary is that while we can be sure we're changing the oceans, it's not so easy to measure the extent of the damage or predict how it will unfold, simply because observations are harder to make underwater than they are on land. (Human beings have explored just 5% of the total volume of the oceans so far.) It's not just a matter of taking bluefin tuna and other valuable species out of the oceans through industrial fishing. The more worrying changes are happening on a chemical level. The oceans have already absorbed more than 80% of the additional heat added to the climate system and about 33% of the carbon dioxide we've emitted into the atmosphere. That's slowed down climate change on land, but it's changing the pH levels of the water in ways that could have a bigger impact on sea life than a thousand factory-fishing boats.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2078840,00.html#ixzz1ShB2v1Cv

see toon at top...

The biggest obstacle to farming fish right, however, isn't the pollution a farm might create, or the risk of disease spreading from farmed fish to their wild cousins. It's the simple fact that to raise most fish—at least the kind of fish we like to eat—we need to catch fish as well. Farmed salmon and other popular species need fishmeal in their diet, and that food comes from small forage fish like anchovies that are caught in the wild. (In fact, such forage fish—called low-trophic level species because of their place on the food chain—account for over 30% of global fisheries production, and most of it goes to fishmeal for aquaculture or agriculture.) It's obviously not very sustainable if you need to take more forage fish from the ocean than you can raise to market on a farm.

Now it turns out that overfishing species on the bottom of the marine food chain can have serious impacts for sea life as a whole. In a new study published in the July 21 Science, researchers led by Anthony Smith of Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization looked at what happens when those low-level forage fish are fished out. Not good things. Fishing species like anchovies and herrings at what are known as conventional maximum sustainable yields (MSY)—the levels at which fishery managers believe produces the most protein without leading to overfishing—can cause problems for the rest of the food web. Forage fish provide the fuel for marine ecosystems—remove the fuel, and that system can break down.

In a way, these results shouldn't be surprising. The more we learn about nature, the more we discover how interconnected it is—from the top of the food chain all the way to the bottom. And that's why, as human numbers and demands keep growing, we keep changing the planet—and even downgrading it—in ways we can barely understand.

UK fishing crews have thrown away stocks of cod worth about £1bn since 1963 due to the practice of discarding catches which exceed or fall outside quotas, according to a thinktank report.

Across all EU fleets, stocks of cod worth £2.7bn were discarded in the North Sea, the Channel and Skagerrak, the strait adjoining Norway, Sweden and the north of Denmark between 1963 and 2008, the New Economics Foundation (NEF) study, Money Overboard, calculated.

Using discard data compiled by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea and focusing just on cod, one of the best-documented stocks, the NEF calculated that just over 2.1m tonnes of the fish was thrown overboard during the period.

The report adds fuel to the bitter debate over the longstanding fisheries practice, particularly prevalent in heavy-regulated EU waters, of throwing overboard a significant proportion of any catch – up to two thirds in some areas – most of which is by this time dead or dying.

The fish are discarded for a variety of reasons: they can be species which are not included in the boat's quota, stocks which exceed a quota, too small, or simply from a species with low commercial value.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/aug/01/eu-fleets-discard-tonnes-of-cod

There is confusion over approval to operate a super trawler factory ship out of north-west Tasmania.

The 142-metre Margiris is the second largest trawler in the world and there is community concern over the potential for overfishing in commonwealth waters around Tasmania.

In Parliament yesterday, Denison Independent Andrew Wilkie urged the Prime Minister to reconsider letting the Magiris into Australian waters.

But Julia Gillard denied approval had already been given.

Ms Gillard said the proponent, Seafish Tasmania, had not even applied to bring the Lithuanian-flagged ship to Devonport.

"There has been no application to the Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA) which the Member for Denison refers to," she said.

Seafish Tasmania says it wants the ship in Tasmania by August, but has not disclosed details of its application.

AFMA has raised the quota limits for fish targeted by the ship to 18,000 tonne.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-06-26/super-trawler-yet-to-be-approved/4092650

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The only confusion here, clearly is that of Wilkie... 

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AFMA is aware that an Australian company has proposed the use of a large vessel in the Commonwealth Small Pelagic Fishery, however to date AFMA has not received any application for this vessel to operate in the fishery.

Cairns, Australia - It takes a village to protect a reef and sustain a local fishery, more than two decades of experience now shows.

And even well-intentioned governments can do more harm than good, community-based conservation experts reported here at the 12th International Coral Reef Symposium (ICRS).

"The first locally managed marine areas doubled the fish biomass [amount and size of fish] in just a few years," said Alan White, senior scientist with the Nature Conservancy at the Global Marine Initiative, Hawaii.

Locally managed areas (LMAs) were first set up in the 1980s in the Philippines. The local community established a no-fishing zone of just 15 hectares of coral reef, and in between three and four years the fish biomass doubled, White said. It was all done without government involvement.

"Once the community sees the benefits, they continue and the idea spreads," he said.

There's been too much top-down management of fisheries by governments, said Helene Marsh, professor of environmental science and dean of graduate research studies at James Cook University. Even in Australia, fishers want more local management and to be directly involved, Marsh said.

"Before LMAs began in the 1980s, fish catches were in sharp decline and desperate fishers were using dynamite to catch the last remaining fish," said Jovelyn Cleofe, the Philipines country coordinator for the Locally Managed Marine Area Network.

Now there are more than 1,000 LMAs in the Philippines. The no-fish areas are quite small - between ten and 20ha each - but numbers of fish have increased, the diversity of fish species has doubled, and the health of the corals improved.
Equally important, fishers' incomes have risen, because they are catching more fish with less effort. And in some cases they earning additional money from tourism, Cleofe said.

Now the latest science has proven that protected areas "seed" the surrounding seas with additional fish. When fish eggs hatch, the microscopic fish larvae drift on the ocean currents which made it extremely difficult to know where they will end up, explained Geoff Jones, of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/07/201271711458290492.html

I knew that a long time ago... dynamite is not good for reefs... and large pockets of no-fishing zones helped restore the balance in the sea-food chain...

The super trawler Abel Tasman will be prevented from fishing in Australian waters until new scientific research is carried out, in a bid to appease community concern about the ship.

Cabinet signed off on the plan last night, in the face of growing unrest on the Labor backbench which would have culminated in a private member's bill being put forward to ban the trawler.

Seafish Tasmania brought the trawler to Australia to fish for a near 18,000-tonne quota of jack mackerel and redbait.

Environment Minister Tony Burke had already imposed restrictions on the trawler to try to limit the number of dolphins, seals and sea lions being caught.

But now he says he will introduce legislation to Parliament today that will extend his legal powers under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC), allowing him to order more scientific research to assess the impact of the trawler on Australia's oceans.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-09-11/government-to-legislate-to-stop-super-trawlers/4254626?WT.svl=news0

What one "cannot" say here is that I knew there was a strong chance this would happen... Now, why?... Strike too early and the arguments for and against the ship get exhausted before the trawler is operating... with a muddy uncertain result... Strike with an evironmental study while the trawler is just about to operate and this stops the trawler in its track...

It's like shooting an elephant... One does not shoot from ten miles away... if you know what I mean... Then you bring on the "growing unrest" and "community concerns" cards rather than an old environmental study that would be "conclusive/inconclusive" made ahead of the super fishing and at this late stage there is not one to show for. Thus, there is a delay in the operation in order to have a study....  One needs to "take (valuable) time" to study the possible implication of such fishing method on fish stocks... It's all legit and it should end up reduce the future such vessel can have in Australian waters... I can show you my pictures of such rustry giant trawlers, in European harbours, that committed suicide by overfishing... if you know what I mean... The only problem is they killed the industry for everyone else as well...

One waits to see the eye of the elephant...

The Government's plan to rush through legislation aimed at stopping the Abel Tasman super trawler appears increasingly likely to fail, with the Coalition declaring its opposition to the move and key crossbenchers voicing concerns about the bill.

Environment Minister Tony Burke yesterday rushed legislation into Parliament to stop the vessel, originally called the Margiris, from fishing in Commonwealth waters.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-09-12/government-facing-roadblock-over-super-trawler-laws/4256344?WT.svl=news0