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WWF issues strong warning on tuna farming
- blue fin stock faces utter decimation
By David Lindsay

Tuna penning has long been a thorny subject in Malta, with concern about the practice peaking recently following a controversial decision to allow the St Paul’s bay venture to expand.

And just last week, tuna farming made the international news, when the World Wildlife Fund warned that the mushrooming in this line of business was seriously depleting the Mediterranean’s stock of blue fin tuna.

On a local level, environmentalists have long expressed worries that the repercussions of the increasing number of tuna farms being set up around Malta are not being taken on board. Their proximity to the shore and the amount of waste they produce are two of the main concerns, coupled with a fear that commercial interests might be favoured over environmental safeguards, as more ventures are given the go-ahead.

Now the head of the WWF’s Mediterranean marine unit has added a different slant to the controversial method of fish farming.

"If nothing is done, wild blue-fin tuna will completely disappear from the Mediterranean within the next years," Paolo Guglielmi warned.

According to the WWF a rise in the popularity of sushi has sparked the crisis, resulting in a "gold rush" in the region.

The WWF explains that Japanese-style sushi restaurants serving the raw fish dish have surfaced in several European cities and even in many small towns over recent years, as the market responds to diners looking to globalise their gastronomic experiences.

The WWF said that the 12 operating Mediterranean tuna farms produced 11,000 tons of tuna last year, compared to an almost negligible amount five years ago. It added that that many of the fish caught for the farms were juveniles and that the practice effectively endangers the species’ reproduction in the wild. Most of the catch is fattened and exported, primarily to Japan, for sushi production

However, as the fish are not killed immediately, but kept alive in cages before being slaughtered and exported, the practice falls outside the jurisdiction of Mediterranean management bodies.

"This so-called tuna farming avoids every regional and international rule set-up to conserve and manage the fishery," commented Simon Cripps, director of WWF's Endangered Seas Program.

He adds, "Governments must urgently take action to close yet another loophole within European fisheries management and step up controls on this growing practice while there is still time."

The WWF urged Mediterranean and European Union governments to cut the fishing effort and to regulate the relatively new trade when reforming the Common Fisheries Policy later this year.

Apart from Malta tuna farms are found in Spain, Italy and Croatia, although countries like France own fleets which supply a large proportion of the tuna.