Tuna farming in the Mediterranean: the bluefin tuna stock ...

Tuna farming inthe Mediterranean:the bluefin tunastock at stake

WWF’s long denounced threat getsextreme

Tuna farming in theMediterranean: the bluefin tunastock at stakeWWF’s long denounced threat gets extreme

© WWF/MEDPOWWF Mediterranean Program OfficeVía Po 25/c00198 RomaTel.: +39 (06) 844 97227Fax: +39 (06) 841 3866www.panda.org/mediterranean

© WWF SpainGran Vía de San Francisco, 8-D28005 MadridTel.: 91 354 05 78Fax: 91 365 63 [email protected]

Text: Sergi Tudela and Raúl GarcíaCoordination: Sergi Tudela and Paolo GuglielmiFront Cover Photo: WWF/Sergi Tudela and WWF-Canon/Jorge Bartolomé Edition: Jorge BartoloméDesign: Amalia Maroto

June 2004

WWF wishes to thank the information provided by the Spanish Agricultureand Fishing Ministry and the Regional Governments of Catalonia andMurcia.

WWF will thank the reproduction of this report, provided acknowledgementof the source is made

http://www.panda.org/mediterranean

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Tuna farming in the Mediterranean: the bluefin tuna stock at stake

Index

Foreword ............................................................................................. 4

Summary ............................................................................................. 5

1. The bluefin tuna: an overview of biology and fisheries .......... 6

2. State and management of the Mediterranean stock ................ 7

3. What is farmed tuna? The production of ‘farmed’ tuna .......... 8

4. Involvement of Mediterranean countries in the fishery ........... 10

5. Some facts about tuna farming production in the Mediterranean .............................................................................. 11

6. Tuna farming: the statistical nightmare that undermines management ................................................................................. 17

7. Tuna farming is increasing the fishing effort on the severely overfished bluefin tuna stock ..................................................... 18

8. The limits of the Japanese market for tuna .............................. 21

9. Subsidies to tuna farms: incentives to overexploit the wild stock ..................................................................................... 22

10. The myth of tuna domestication: a win-win alliance between the farming industry and aquaculture scientists (to the detriment of the wild stock) ............................................ 24

11. WWF initiatives and positive developments towards the regulation of tuna farming and the related fisheries ......... 25

12. Bad prospects for the future: tuna farming is getting definitely out of control, only driven by market forces ........... 27

13. Conclusions and WWF recommendations ................................ 29

Selected sources ............................................................................... 31

Anexx I ................................................................................................ 32

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WWF’s long denounced threat gets extreme

Foreword

In May 2002 WWF released the first version of this report: “Tuna farmingin the Mediterranean: the ‘coup the grâce’ to a dwingling population?” At

that time, a still fragmentary picture made of some scattered though solidevidences was coming to light, pointing to the emergence of a new activitywith a tremendous potential to put the Mediterranean bluefin tuna popula-tion at stake. Now, 2 years later, it is widely recognised among scientistsand other specialists that our most pessimistic predictions have —unfortu-nately— been accomplished. With much more elements now for the analy-sis, this document (now without the question marks in the title) focuses onthe most acute threat driven by current tuna farming practices on the EastAtlantic bluefin tuna stock: the rampant mismanagement of the wild stock,including the increasing fishing pressure from the industrial sector and thecontinuous deterioration of management possibilities. This doesn’t meanthat the importance given to the rest of aspects dealt with in the previousversion of this report has been reduced. On the contrary, local pollution, so-cio-economic impacts —especially on small-scale fishermen—, etc. occureverywhere in the Region, concomitantly to tuna farming developments.However, the situation vis-à-vis the impact on the integrity of the wild stockis so extreme that we have decided to make it the focus of our study.

We hope this second report will be the last one of the series, and thatnational and international management bodies will soon act to reverse thecurrent unsustainable trend. We wouldn’t like to issue a further report in thenear future entitled “Tuna farming in the Mediterranean: the long an-nounced collapse of the tuna fishery came true”.

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Summary

A new practice in the Mediterranean —tuna penning— is threateningone of our most valuable fish resources. The bluefin tuna is already un-

der considerable pressure and has been declining for years. Now tunafarming has opened up a new section on the Japanese market, which hasfurther increased the demand for bluefin tuna and made the situation of wildstocks even more perilous.

The rapid increase in tuna penning has changed fishing strategies inthe Mediterranean. All fish caught by purse seiners are now transferred tocages for fattening, rather than sold directly. The ever-increasing demandfor live tuna is boosting the fishing pressure by high-tech, large-scale purseseine fleets, to the point that both fishing and farming have clearly reachedovercapacity. This situation is exacerbated by public subsidies allocated bythe EU to farms and fleets.

With the new practice the reliability of catch statistics has further de-teriorated —an already serious problem hampering efforts to properly man-age the eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna population. In addition, demands fromthe tuna farming industry have created increasing fishing pressure on somelocal small pelagic fish stocks. Some of these fisheries affect stocks alreadyin decline, such as the anchovy. The low conversion efficiency from feed totuna meat also makes tuna farming a wasteful practice, entailing a highecological footprint.

Now WWF warns that the eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna stock could col-lapse within the next years, unless fishing pressure is significantly loweredand tuna farming is immediately and strictly regulated by the responsiblemanagement bodies.

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1. The bluefin tuna: an overview ofbiology and fisheries

The bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) is alarge pelagic species found both in the At-lantic (including the Mediterranean) and in thePacific. It is a massive fish, which can grow toover 3 metres and a weight of more than 650kg. Bluefin tuna is marvellously adapted toswimming and migrates several thousandskilometres every year. From an ecologicalpoint of view, bluefin tuna is a key species inthe pelagic food web. It is a top predator thatfeeds on fish, squids and crustaceans —avery important ecosystem function that, tosome extent, it shares with marine mammalsand man.

Another relevant biological feature is thelong life span of bluefin tuna; it can live morethan 20 years. Sexual maturity is reached atthe age of 5 to 8 years, depending on thestock. These characteristics —long life spanand late sexual maturity— make bluefin tunaespecially vulnerable to fishing, since it isprone to growth overfishing.

Bluefin tuna fisheries in the Atlantic arefound in the areas where the species is abun-dant: along the North American coast, in theWest Atlantic, along northern Africa and theEuropean coasts, in the East Atlantic, as wellas in most of the Mediterranean Sea. Thoughthe biological knowledge of bluefin tuna in theAtlantic is still limited, two different stocks arebelieved to occur. Therefore, the InternationalCommission for the Conservation of AtlanticTunas (ICCAT) has defined two managementunits, one referring to the West Atlantic tunaand the other referring to the East Atlanticpopulation, which includes the entire Mediter-ranean population. Both stocks are assessedand managed separately.

Recently, tagging studies have providedevidence of mixing of the two stocks, includ-ing transatlantic migrations. Also fisherieshave quickly developed in a previously un-known area of concentration of fish in thenorth central Atlantic. The presence of adultfish in the central Atlantic during the spawningseason adds further uncertainty to the de-

mography of the species. All this evidencedoes raise questions regarding the validity ofthe current management scheme based ontwo entirely separate stocks.

Current catches from the western stockare rather modest (3,215 tonnes in 2002), thestock being clearly overexploited. A 20 yearRebuilding Program was adopted in 1998,which is now on-going. The state of the EastAtlantic population, quantitatively more impor-tant, is described below. The primary spawn-ing area for the eastern stock is the Mediter-ranean Sea, mainly around the BalearicIslands, the Tyrrhenian Sea and the CentralMediterranean, which implies a marked mi-gratory behaviour by both adults and juve-niles along the Mediterranean coasts as wellas throughout the Gibraltar Straits.

In the Mediterranean Sea, bluefin tunais caught mainly by purse seine and longlinefleets, as well as by illegal driftnets in someareas like the Gulf of Lions. Purse seining is arather recent catch method. It developed inthe 1960’s and the purse seine fleet now ac-counts for 60 to 80 per cent of the totalMediterranean catch. It relies on high-techequipment and is very species-selective aswell as efficient; also, contrary to what hap-pens in other regions of the world, purseseine fishing in the Mediterranean does notentail high by catches of cetaceans. The effi-ciency of purse seining has lead ICCAT to es-tablish some technical limitations in order torestrict fishing capacity, such as the decisionin 2001 to ban the use of spotter helicoptersor planes during the month of June.

Generally, fisheries management in theMediterranean region involves control of fish-ing effort and technical measures. But in linewith the stock differentiation mentionedabove, ICCAT has developed a managementregime for the eastern stock based on quotas(TAC) allocated on a state-by-state basis.This makes bluefin tuna the only fish resourcein the Mediterranean managed through quotaregimes (a single quota is set for captures inthe East Atlantic and Mediterranean). Howev-er, the efficiency of the bluefin tuna manage-ment regime is limited, mainly due to the lack

of Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ’s) in theMediterranean and the related problems ofenforcing legislation in international waters.Other factors of importance are the presenceof a substantial IUU fleet, either flying flags ofconvenience or none at all, and the high prof-its in the tuna fishery, which have resulted ina lack of political will to limit fishing effort. Asexplained below, tuna farming activities —starting in late 90’s— have dramatically ex-acerbated the problems.

2. State and management of theMediterranean stock

The last assessment of the conserva-tion status of the East Atlantic bluefin tunastock (which includes the Mediterraneanpopulation) was carried out by the StandingCommittee on Research and Statistics(SCRS) of ICCAT in 2002. Though this as-sessment was originally scheduled for 2000,it had to be postponed due to the deficientquality of data reported. Yet in their 2002 re-port, the SCRS warns about the bad qualityof data available to scientists and subse-quently used in the assessment: it is sus-pected that 1) ‘large quantities of undersizedfish are caught but not reported’ and 2) ‘therehas been increasing under reporting in thelast few years, especially since 1998’. Be-sides, the SCRS acknowledged that catchper unit effort data and size data were notavailable for important Mediterranean coun-tries, which led this Committee to admit nothaving confidence on the assessments pre-sented, based on these data. Even so theassessments pointed to strong overexploita-tion, fishing mortality in 2000 being 2.5 timeshigher than the maximum level compatiblewith the adequate reproduction of the popu-lation (Fmax criterion). Overall, the scientificstudy concluded that under prevailing fishingconditions “current catch levels cannot besustainable in the long-term”, scientists be-ing especially concerned by the high catchesof juveniles and the “abrupt” increase ofcatches of large fish since 1994. In thissense, the analysis indicated that futurecatch levels of 26,000 tonnes or more wouldnot be sustainable over the long-term.

To address unreported catches ICCATcompares the catch data reported by the dif-ferent countries (Task 1) with the import fig-ures to Japan (biannual Bluefin Tuna Statis-tical Document, BTSD). A comparison of1999 figures amounted to an estimated3,242 tonnes of unreported catch in theMediterranean by Spain, Croatia, France,Italy, Portugal and Morocco. This was about10 per cent of the quota set for that year andalmost certainly still below the actual catch.Scientists close to ICCAT SCRS suspectthat real captures are well beyond the quo-ta and the reported figures on a systematicbasis, and that some key fishing countriesharvest several times their quota (pers.comm.).

In spite of the worrying picture providedby ICCAT scientists, the 13th Special Meetingof ICCAT held in Bilbao in 2002 adopted anunsustainable annual quota of 32,000 tonnesfor the years 2003 to 2006, 23% higher thanthe maximum level scientifically determined.More than half this quota (18582 t) was allo-cated to the European Union, which high-lights the responsibility of this ICCAT con-tracting party in the management of thisstock. However, it must be highlighted thatthe current management system based onquotas is largely non-operational since thereare no effective mechanisms in place ensur-ing a monitoring of overall catches in realtime. This means that it is not possible to stopthe whole fishery when the total annual quotahas been met because neither ICCAT is re-ceiving continuous updated information oncatches during the fishing season nor it is em-powered with the political mechanisms to doso. As is explained in other sections of thisdocument, tuna farming is exacerbating thisproblem, and total catches on the stock on anational basis are reported to the manage-ment authority —ICCAT— a posteriori, thefollowing year or even two years later. As forMediterranean EU countries, the mecha-nisms in place under the EU legislation pro-viding for the reporting of catches and land-ings (compulsory filling of logbooks, landingdeclarations, etc.) are poorly operational,which affect the reliability of national catchstatistics.

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In their 2002 report, the SCRS warnedthat “unless the situation improves, the quali-ty of the advice that the Committee can pro-vide will continue to deteriorate”, with fish fat-tening practices being identified as one of thecandidate factors responsible for the deterio-ration in the collection of catch statistics.

3. What is farmed tuna? The production of ‘farmed’ tuna

An expanding practice in the Mediter-ranean has further complicated management

of the bluefin tuna stock-tuna farming. Thiscannot be considered true aquaculture sincethe fish are not bred and reared in captivity.Instead, the rapidly growing industry is basedon wild tuna caught alive from already declin-ing stocks. Purse seines are the only mobilegear able to capture tuna alive; a feature thatmakes the purse seine fleets a necessary el-ement of the tuna farming industry. This isarising in a strong and unfair competition fortuna between large-scale, high tech purseseiner fleets and traditional longliners, thatcompete for the same resource and share thenational quotas with the former.

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2003 2004 2005 2006

Algeria 1,500 1,550 1,600 1,700

China 74 74 74 74

Croatia 900 935 945 970

European Community 18,582 18,450 18,331 18,301

Iceland 30 40 50 60

Japan 2,949 2,930 2,890 2,830

Tunisia 2,503 2,543 2,583 2,625

Libya 1,286 1,300 1,400 1,440

Morocco 3,030 3,078 3,127 3,177

Others 1,146 1,100 1,000 823

Table 1. BFT Quotas allocated by ICCAT

Indeed, in order to avoid confusion be-tween tuna caging activities in the Mediter-ranean and real aquaculture, FAO proposedto the GFCM and ICCAT to adopt the term“tuna farming”, linked to the following defini-tion:

“Tuna farming currently involves the col-lection of wild fish, ranging from small tolarge specimens, and their rearing infloating cages for periods spanning froma few months up to 1-2 years. Fishweight increment or change in the fatcontent of the flesh is obtained throughstandard fish farming practices. Con-finement of captured fish during shortperiods of time (2-6 months) aimedmostly at increasing the fat content ofthe flesh, which strongly influences theprizes of the tuna meat on the Japanesesashimi market, can also be referred toas ‘tuna fattening’. Future tuna farmingpractices may evolve to encompass aclosed life cycle, i.e. the rearing of lar-vae in laboratory conditions”.

Once caught, tuna is transferred alive tospecial towing cages, which are then trans-ported to the farm sites by means of tugboats (other boats than fishing vessels). In-put season typically extends from May/Juneto July/September, depending on the country.Then fish are transferred to pens, where theyare fattened for a relatively short time to im-prove the oil content of the flesh in order tomeet the Japanese market standards. Fat-tening period usually lasts for 6-7 months,since the peak of the demand by the Japan-ese market occurs by the end of the year.Fattening period can last up to 20 months inCroatia, given the smaller size of fish cagedthere.

According to the available informationthis focus on meat quality entails very lowfood conversion efficiency, thus resulting inan extremely wasteful practice having a veryhigh ecological footprint. Conversion rates re-ported for farms in Italy, Spain and Turkeyrange from 10 kg to 25 kg of baitfish con-sumed to produce only 1 kg of tuna. So, thelarge amounts of fish fed to caged tuna (main-

ly small and medium pelagics, such as an-chovy, round sardinelle, mackerel or herring)only result in a relatively modest increase intuna biomass.

Starting only in 1996, about 21,000tonnes of wild-caught bluefin tuna were intro-duced into cages in the Mediterranean in2003 (out of a total quota for the East Atlanticand Mediterranean of 32,000 tonnes). Thetable below shows the share of the differentcountries regarding Japanese imports fromthe Mediterranean in 2002.

Source: National Report of Japan to GFCM SAC in 2003

Outside the Mediterranean, the tunafarming industry is also expanding rapidly inother regions of the world like Australia, Mex-ico (Baja California), USA and Japan. The fat-tening of Southern bluefin tuna (Thunnusmaccoyii) started in Australia (Port Lincoln)by the same time it did in the Mediterraneanand reached a production of 9,245 tonnes in2002, a three-fold increase in only 5 years.Mexican tuna farms based in Baja Californiadeal with bigeye and yellowfin tuna (T. obesus

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Table 2. Japanese import of farmed tuna* year 2002

CountryEstimated roundweight (tonnes)

Croatia 3,190

Italy 1,641

Malta 2,311

Spain 6,006

Turkey 1,405

Total 14,553

and T. albacares, respectively). Bluefin tunawould also be farmed in the USA and Cana-da. Advanced plans to start tuna farming ac-tivities involve, at least, the Marshall Islands(yellowfin) and Peru.

4. Involvement of Mediterraneancountries in the fishery

The participation in the bluefin tuna fish-ery in the Mediterranean of the differentcoastal states and Japan is summarised be-low.

AlgeriaAlgeria reported to ICCAT a total bluefin

catch in 2002 of 1710 t. In 2001, an invest-ment company focused on business opportu-nities in fisheries, Union-Pêche, announcedthe launching of a project to build an entirepurse seining fleet (20 vessels) aimed at tunafishing for farms, worth 20 million $. This inspite of a modest quota (1500 t) allocated toAlgeria by ICCAT only since 2003.

CroatiaThe total catch of bluefin tuna in the

Adriatic Sea by this country in 2002 was 977tonnes, mostly caught by purse seine fleetsand transferred to Croatian farms (100%). Tomeet the needs of the farming industry, thenumber of active purse seiners fishing forbluefin tuna increased from 19 in 1999 to 31in 2002. Captures are based on immature an-imals, with the average mean size stronglydecreasing in the last few years (from 24,2 kgin 1999 to only 8,2 kg in 2002).

FranceFrance is currently the most important

supplier of live tuna to Mediterranean farms(especially, the Spanish ones). With a localfleet of 40 purse seiners based in the Gulf ofLions, reported French captures in theMediterranean amounted to 5810 t in 2002.While historically exploiting mostly Northwestern Mediterranean fishing grounds, thelast years French purse seines have extend-ed their operations to the South of Malta aswell as to the waters off Libya and Cyprus. In2003, an industrial vessel belonging to a fleet

usually working in the Southern Atlantic andthe Indian Ocean was transferred to Libyanwaters under a charter arrangement (see be-low).

GreeceTuna catches in 2002 amounted to 440

tonnes, mainly through hand-lining and otherartisanal gears. A few purse seiners operateon an opportunistic basis. The Ministry ofAgriculture of Greece reports that in the con-text of advanced plans to initiate tuna farmingactivities in the country, authorizations will beissued to national vessels to capture andtransport bluefin tuna.

ItalyA total 92 purse seiners operate in the

Mediterranean. According to official statistics,they captured 4,700 tons of bluefin tuna in2002, 86% of which was devoted to farming.According to ICCAT, tuna farming is exacer-bating the problems related to the adequatemonitoring of catch levels and the determina-tion of the size composition of the catch sincemost of purse seine catches are sold at sea ininternational waters and transported to thirdcountries.

JapanThe Japanese fishery in the Mediter-

ranean is devoted to bluefin tuna fishing usinglonglines. Catch has decreased from 800 t in1995 to 131 t in 2001, due to a reduction infishing effort.

LibyaFor 2001 Libya reported the capture of

1940 tonnes of bluefin tuna, most of it caughtby the local longlining fleet. In 2003, an in-dustrial fishing vessel flagging the Frenchflag, with a fishing capacity of some thousandtonnes per year, was operating in Libyan wa-ters in the context of a charter agreement be-tween the EU and Libya. Catches by this fleetwere supposed to be counted against thequota allocated by ICCAT to Libya, whichamounted to only 1286 t (less than half the to-tal fishing capacity of this vessel alone), andare presumably aimed at supplying tunafarms (there is an on-going development oftuna farms in the country).

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MaltaThe fishing fleet targeting tuna was

composed of 52 multipurpose vessels usingdrifting longlines in 2001. One purse seinerwas operating in 2003, supplying with live tu-na the local farms. Tuna catches in 2001 were219 tonnes.

MoroccoIn 2002, Morocco reported the capture

of 3008 t of bluefin tuna (including both At-lantic and Mediterranean catches).

SpainReported bluefin tuna catches in the

Mediterranean were 2200 tonnes in 2002.Spain has 6 modern purse seiners based inthe Mediterranean, which captured a total1453 t of tuna in 2001. 70% in weight of thiscatch was destined to farming.

TunisiaIn 2002 the purse seine fleet targeting

tuna was composed of 52 fishing boats (re-sponsible for 96% of total tuna catch). Bluefintuna catch in 2001 amounted to 2513 t, an im-portant share of it (1400 t) being towed to tu-na farms in Spain. After the recent establish-ment of tuna farming facilities in Tunisia, tunacatches from local purse seiners are probablyaimed at supplying local farms.

TurkeyThe start of tuna farming activities in

Turkey in 2002 has resulted in a strong in-crease in purse seine fishing on tuna. Fishingeffort has almost doubled in one year, from 28purse seine units targeting tuna in 2002 to 50in 2003. Bluefin tuna catch in 2002 amountedto 2300 t, 1400 of which were transferred tofarms. It is important to stress here thatTurkey is a contracting party to ICCAT onlysince August 2003 and that there is no quotafor bluefin tuna allocated from ICCAT to thiscountry for the whole period 2003-2006. Inthis context, production from Turkish tunafarms originated from catches by the nationaltuna purse seine fleet (100% of farmed tuna)would qualify as IUU-related production (thatis, arising from illegal fisheries).

5. Some facts about tuna farmingproduction in the Mediterranean

In a 2001 document the Japanese ex-pert Dr. Miyake explained that before the de-velopment of tuna farming in the Mediter-ranean, the Japanese bluefin tuna marketwas consistent with either very high quality tu-na (pre-spawners) or cheap, low quality tuna(post-spawners and juveniles). In this context,emerging tuna farming created a new medi-um-quality product filling the gap betweenthese two categories on the market. Miyakealready warned that the consequent increasein demand for tuna from fish farms would fur-ther increase the fishing effort, and have avery negative effect on an already severelyoverexploited stock.

The same author also stated that the in-creasing market demand for tuna was makingit harder and harder to reach an agreementon how to share the quota between the fish-ing nations under ICCAT, and that various na-tions were suspected to have being “well ex-ceeding” their quota.

In the last few years, as the volume offarmed fish has increased and the price offresh bluefin tuna has gone down, the volumeof frozen fish has become increasingly impor-tant. Frozen products affect the market lessthan fresh since they can be stored and thensold when the supply of fresh fish is low.Since all the farmed tuna has the high oil con-tent that is so appreciated on the Japanesemarket, the portion frozen fish sold later in theseason has increased. In 2002 about 60% oftuna exported to Japan from Spain was com-mercialized frozen.

Some relevant aspects related to tunafarming in the different Mediterranean coastalstates (and Japan) are summarised below.

Algeria

In July 2001, the Algerian Fisheries FirmUnion-Pêche (the first industrial subsidiary ofthe privately owned Union Bank, with an aimto invest in ‘first class industrial opportunities

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in Algeria’) announced that they had signedan agreement with the Spanish-Portugueseship building company Navalfoz. According tothe agreement, a fleet of 20 tuna vessels witha deck length of 30 metres and 1 measuring47 metres would be built. This new fleetwould be able to keep tuna alive in mobilecages, and negotiations with Japaneseclients were already on-going at the time. Un-fortunately, no further news on the outcome ofthis operation is available.

This case illustrates the powerful eco-nomic interests behind tuna farming activitiesthat are fuelling the development of the sectorin the region. The economic investments as-sociated with this operation amounted to 20million dollars. It is also noteworthy that thisdevelopment was agreed despite the fact thatAlgeria did not become a contracting party toICCAT until February 2001 and lacked anyquota for bluefin tuna allocated by ICCAT un-til 2003. With an aim to get a better quotafrom ICCAT, Algeria supplied ICCAT with re-vised figures on national catches of bluefin tu-na for the last years. The new figures showeda peak in the landings in 1993 and 1994, sur-prisingly the same years that ICCAT uses asthe reference point for quota allocationamong the different states. Algeria was finallygiven a quota of 1500 t, a volume of catchthat doesn’t justify the building of the enor-mous purse seine fishing capacity an-nounced.

According to information from localsources, though, there are currently strongpressures pushing for the launching of tunafarming activities there. It is well known that in2002, an Algerian businessman based inFrance had already advanced negotiationswith two Japanese companies to start tunafarming activities in Algeria.

Croatia

State of the art

The fattening of bluefin tuna started InCroatia in 1996. In 2002, there were 10 farmsin place in the counties of Zadar, Sibenik and

Split, worth 65 floating cages. Kali Tuna, joint-ly owned by Croatian, Australian and Japan-ese interests, is the largest Croatian tunafarming company. Is was founded by Croatianexpatriates in Australia, who imported into theAdriatic the know-how they acquired regard-ing the farming of Southern bluefin tuna in thearea of Port Lincoln.

According to estimates from Japanesetrade data, 3910 tonnes of bluefin tuna wereintroduced into Croatian farms in 2002 (a to-tal 2628 according to Croatian sources).Though in the first 4 years of farming all livetuna was supplied by the local purse seine tu-na fleet, from 2001 onwards farms also relyon the activity of foreign fleets, namely Italian,Tunisian, French and Spanish. Unlike the oth-er farming sites in the Mediterranean, the du-ration of the fattening season in Croatia canlast up to 20 months, due to the very smallsize of tuna entered into the cages.

As reported to GFCM and ICCAT, part offeedfish used by farms consists of smallpelagic fish locally harvested in the AdriaticSea. Kali Tuna in 2001 benefited from the full-time activity of 7 purse seiners targeting smallpelagic fish operating for the company. Oneof the owners of Kali Tuna declared that theamount of anchovy needed for one yearamounted to 4500 tonnes that year. All theproduction in shipped to Japan (40% of itfrozen).

Conservation and environmental conflicts

Tuna farming in Croatia has a long his-tory of conflicts with local communities, con-servationists, the tourism sector and even theGovernment.

The 2 February 2003 a local referendumin the island of Vis stopped a new tuna-farm-ing project from taking off. The community’sresponse was the first of its kind in Croatia.Currently the local NGO Sunce is working to-gether with the local communities to opposeto new tuna farm projects on the islands ofBrac and Lastovo, where there is a strong op-position from the locals.

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In March 2003 the Croatian ministry re-sponsible for the environment released its an-nual report that included a list of facilities haz-ardous to human health. In this list, tunafarms were mentioned as presenting dangersto marine ecosystems. It was the first time inthe Mediterranean that an official position onthe ecological risk of tuna farming had beenstated. Criteria used in the report to measurethe “risky” character of the facilities includedduration and intensity of the damage on na-ture, and the environmental impact of theproduction equipment. According to the re-port, several tuna farms did not met the oblig-atory environmental or administrative stan-dards (thus violating the legislation in force).But the major risk came from the fact that thefarms were often located in shallow waters,near the coast, where the rate of water re-newal is too low to enable proper cleanup oftuna wastes and of the excess baitfish usedto feed tuna.

Finally, it must be mention that the Adri-atic anchovy stock exploited for fishfeed isquite unstable, having already collapsed inthe past.

Cyprus

Tuna farming activities started in Cyprusin 2003. There are currently 2 tuna farms onthe island. One of them is located on the Eastcoast, in Northern Cyprus, in Famagusta Bay.This farm is related to the Turkish companyDardanel. The other is found in the South ofthe country, in the Limassol Bay and is con-trolled by Kimagro Fishfarming Ltd.

The farm at Limassol Bay consists of 3cages, which were filled by live tuna caughtby French and Spanish vessels.

France

The French purse seine fleet targetingtuna in the Mediterranean is the main singlesupplier of live tuna to the farms in the region.Their strong influence over French fisheriesauthorities has so far governed the French

position at the GFCM and ICCAT. In somecases, this collaboration between tuna farm-ers and purse seine fishermen translates intothe direct involvement of French fishermen ina sort of vertical integration of farming indus-try activities. This would explain the agree-ment reached in 1998 between a society ofFrench purse seiners (Sud-Marée) and Span-ish tuna farmers, which resulted in the cre-ation of the joint company Thon de la FermeMéditerranéenne (TFM), which got involvedin the management of Spanish tuna farms.

Though there are no farms currently inplace in France, plans to do so are recurrentsince the start of tuna farming activities in theMediterranean. An experimental project for a4-cages farm was envisaged for the Fréjusgulf in French Mediterranean waters, in 2000.The proposed location was only 650 to 700metres offshore and next to a Posidonia sea-grass bed, a habitat protected under the EUHabitats Directive. An impact study based ona hydrodynamic model concluded that underconditions prevalent in spring and summerthe risk of direct pollution by farm waste onthe neighbouring beaches was important. Re-cent information points to the possibility thatseveral farming projects are launched inFrance in the near future.

Details on the massive transfer in 2003of fishing capacity from an industrial large-scale French purse seiner operating in thetropical high seas into the Mediterranean aregiven in a separate section of this report.

Greece

Tuna farms in Greece are planned to beoperational along 2004.

Japan

Since Japan has a national longline fleetoperating in the Mediterranean, the JapaneseFisheries Authority showed in the past itsconcern about the diminishing returns ofJapanese longliners faced to the increasingcompetition from production of farmed tuna.

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The Japanese authorities also claim that na-tional consumer associations are increasinglyworried about the supposedly much higherpollutant content in the meat of farmed tunacompared to wild-caught fish (probably linkedto the use of polluted feedfish in some farms,like Baltic herring) and are strongly interestedin the traceability of the product.

Other Japanese stakeholders, however,have strong vested interests in the tuna farm-ing industry. Virtually all tuna farms export toJapan through Japanese intermediary tradecompanies (like Torei-Toyo Reizo, the tunaarm of Mitsubishi, Takayama, Kayo, Maruhaand Mitsui) and often tuna farming companiesare participated by Japanese capital (like Kaliin Croatia), usually from these same compa-nies

Libya

It is well known that Libya has alreadystarted tuna farming activities in its territory.However, the Libyan authorities are not pro-viding ICCAT with any information thereof. In-deed, in spite of being Libya a contractingparty to ICCAT and GFCM, after having beenrequired by the Joint GFCM/ICCAT WorkingGroup on Tuna Farming in the Mediterraneanto present a ‘national report’ on tuna farmingactivities there was no reply from this country,nor any Libyan delegation has been attendingthe meetings of this working group. Currenttuna farming activities there would involve ajoint venture between a Spanish tuna farmerand local investors close to the Libyan au-thorities.

Malta

State of the art

Tuna farming having started as recentlyas in 2000, 3 tuna farms were operational inMalta in 2002, involving the use of 15 floatingcages.

According to ICCAT estimates from in-dustry data, a total 1930 t on tuna were

farmed in 2002 (2259 t according to the Mal-tese authorities). All this tuna is imported fromItaly and Libya and the resulting production isexported to Asian markets. Asian investorsare involved in some of the farms (Koreanpartners are involved in the farm off Is-Sikkal-Bajda, controlled by Azzopardi FisheriesLtd.).


Conflicts related to tuna farms in Maltaarose with the very start of the activity, like inSpain and Croatia. Already in 1999, BirdlifeMalta warned that an application for a tunafarm project submitted to the authorities en-visaged the location of cages only 300 metresoffshore, threatening the important nestingcolonies of seabirds found at the cliffs at Ta’-Cenc, in Gozo. The farm authorized in theBenghajsa reef (Birzebbugia), owned byMediterranean Tuna Ltd., has been allowedto install close to a nesting colony of Shear-water birds, despite the objections made byNature Trust (NGO based in Malta).

As for the most important farm in Malta,the one located off Is-Sikka l-Bajda and con-trolled by Azzopardi Fisheries Ltd, the Plan-ning Authority Board of Malta approved its ex-tension from 4 to 8 cages against therecommendations made by the technical ad-visors of the same Planning Directorate; infact the tuna farm had already been operatingwith 8 cages without permission.

As for local fishermen, there have beenserious frictions between local tuna fishermen(small to medium-scale longliners) and the tu-na penning industry and its associated purseseine fleets. Disputes involving Italian (fromthe Adriatic) and Spanish fishermen, on onehand, and Maltese longliners, on the other,required the presence of the Armed Forces in2002.

In September 2001, the Maltese nation-al delegation to the GFCM 26th Session pro-posed the establishment of a box in interna-tional waters south of Malta, that would beclosed to purse seine fishing. It was claimed

14


that increasing purse seining by a diversefleet aimed at supplying the farms with tunaand the activity of tug boats towing the tunacages were dramatically disturbing traditionallongline fisheries by Maltese, Italian, Tunisianand Japanese fleets, as well as reducing tunacatches. The Maltese proposal was rejectedfollowing strong opposition from the EU.

Opposition from the important tourismindustry also exists. Indeed, in 2002 the Mal-ta Hotels and Restaurants Association(MHRA) complained about the increasing tu-na farm activities around Malta, arguing thatpollution originated from these facilities washaving a negative effect on diving tourism.

Spain

State of the art

Tuna farming in Spain is highly concen-trated in the region of Murcia (SE Spain),where the first farm started to export tuna toJapan as recently as in 1997. In 2003 therewere 9 tuna farms in place, occupying a totalsea area of 3,55 square kilometres. The dif-ferent companies created are mostly ownedby the groups Fuentes, Albaladejo, andMendez, who are also involved in tuna farm-ing business around the Mediterranean. Twofurther tuna farms operate in Andalusia andCeuta, taking advantage of traditional tunatraps. Two further tuna farms were also givengreen light in the North of Spain, in Catalonia,one of them also belonging to R. Fuentes.

According to estimates from Japanesetrade data submitted to ICCAT, 5450 tonnesof bluefin tuna were farmed in Spain in 2002.Regarding the origin of fish farmed, Frenchand Spanish fleets were the main suppliersduring the first years of farming activities.Currently, tuna caged in Spain comes fromthe activity of many different fleets virtuallycovering all Mediterranean waters (from Italyand Malta to Croatia, Tunisia, Libya andCyprus). According to the 2003 Spanish Re-port to the GFCM/ICCAT Working Group onTuna Farming, this diversification of sourcespartly obey to an attempt from the Spanish

farming industry to overcome the binding IC-CAT Recommendation 96-2 that prohibits theuse of airplanes and helicopters supportingfishing operations in the Mediterranean Seain the month of June. According to thissource, Spanish farms sought increased tunasupply possibilities resulting from the violationof ICCAT rules in contracting parties facingenforcement deficits.

The value of tuna production in Spain(Murcia Region) has dramatically increased inthe last few years. From only 3.1 million € in1996 it reached 107.5 million € in 2002(worth 2.2% of the gross product of the Re-gion). In this context, it can be easily under-stood the enormous lobby power that tunafarming industrials have on both the Murcianregional and the Spanish national govern-ments, that explains why many of the com-plains regarding tuna farms presented byconservationists, artisanal fishermen and sci-entists are usually overlooked.


The start of tuna farming activities inSpain soon led to conflicts with the rest ofstakeholders sharing the coastal fringe with.Recently, the Murcia-based NGO ANSE sub-mitted an official complain against the Min-istry of Agriculture of Murcia to the SpanishOmbudsman relating to many irregularities at-tributable to tuna farms in the area that wereinadequately addressed by the local adminis-tration; they ranged from the lack of availabil-ity of Environmental Impact Assessment re-ports, the illegal extension of farms towardsenvironmentally sensitive areas, the lack ofimplementation of the governmental decisionto concentrate all farms on selected offshoreareas, etc. The official reply from the SpanishOmbudsman fully supports ANSE’s points, bystating that the Ministry of Agriculture of Mur-cia is totally reluctant to provide the requiredinformation, even to this institution created bythe Spanish Government.

One of such denounced cases includethe lack of reaction from the Regional Gov-ernment regarding the setting up by the com-

15


pany Atunes de Levante (belonging to thegroup Ricardo Fuentes) of a tuna farm in Au-gust 1999 without presenting any environ-mental impact assessment.

Also, ANSE has criticized that the deci-sion from the Regional Government of Murciato create an ‘aquaculture polygon’ has result-ed in the approval of concessions for new tu-na farms instead of relocating there all tunafarms already in place, currently scatteredalong all the Murcian coastline, as was theoriginal purpose of this measure.

As for local fishermen, tension soonarose between the local purse seine fleet tar-geting small pelagics and the tuna farmers,grouped under the association ASETUN. Lo-cal fishermen claimed that their diminishingcatches were a result of the combined effectsof pollution from tuna farms and the presenceof cages in shallow coastal areas, with theconsequence of tuna, being large predators,scaring small pelagic shoals. Anyhow, tunafarmers reached an agreement with the localpurse seine sector to buy to them part of theircatch of small pelagic fish, to be used asfeedfish in the farms. Though this deal con-tributed to calm down the situation, in 2003tuna producers broke the agreement due tothe crisis created by the oversupply of theJapanese market for tuna and the subse-quent dropping of prices fetched by farmedtuna, and the lower costs of frozen feedfishimported from third countries.

Besides, the use of locally harvestedsmall pelagic fish to feed farmed tuna has in-creased the ecological footprint on the sur-rounding ecosystem. Indeed, tuna farminghas indirectly driven the dynamics of thesmall pelagic fishery in the region; a previ-ously valueless species —the round sardinel-la Sardinella aurita— has become an impor-tant target species very appreciated forfeeding tuna. Though tuna producers saythey have added value to a formerly not tar-geted species, there is increasing concernover cetacean specialists about the possibleimpact this new fishery could have on the im-portant dolphin population in the area, thatappears to partly rely on this species.

Probably, the Spanish fishermen themore strongly affected by tuna farms and therelated increase in the fishing effort are sur-face longliners based in Murcia and Andalu-sia. Indeed, the effect of tuna farming on theiractivity is twofold: on one side, increasinghigh-tech purse seining is outcompeting long-lines in the capture of the same fish resource,on the other, logistics related to fishing-and-farming activities (like the traffic of tugboatstugging floating cages along hundreds ofmiles) is damaging their set fishing gears. It isnot surprising that longline fishermen based inCarboneras (Andalusia) are regularly sendingcomplaining letters to the Spanish ministry ofFisheries asking for a stricter regulation of tu-na farming and the related seining activities.

As for scientists, in June 2001 the Sci-entific Forum on Spanish Fishing in theMediterranean, composed of some of themost respected fishery scientists in the re-gion, expressed concern regarding the dra-matic increase of tuna farming activities: “tu-na penning is undoubtedly worsening thesituation by distorting even more the man-agement system applied to this fishery, be-sides its possible negative impact on theecosystems”. As for the latter aspect, a newfarm project in Garrucha (Almeria, Andalusia)could negatively affect the neighbouring Nat-ural Park of Cabo de Gata.

Finally, it is well known that planesbased in Spanish airports supporting tunapurse seiners to locate bluefin shoals move toAlgerian airports (Oran) in June to overcomethe enforcement of the ICCAT ban on aerialsupport to tuna fishing.

Tunisia

It is well known that Tunisia has alreadystarted tuna farming activities in its territory.However, the Tunisian authorities are not pro-viding ICCAT with any information thereof. In-deed, in spite of being Tunisia a contractingparty to ICCAT and GFCM, after having beenrequired by the Joint GFCM/ICCAT WorkingGroup on Tuna Farming in the Mediterraneanto present a ‘national report’ on tuna farming

16


activities there was no reply from this country,nor any Tunisian delegation has attended themeetings of this working group. In this con-text, WWF has recently received confirmationfrom the General Director for Fisheries andAquaculture of Tunisia that there exist 6 tunafarms located in the eastern coast of Tunisia,in Chebba and Hergla, in the ‘gouvernorat’ ofMehdia.

Tuna farming companies from SE Spain(namely Albaladejo) would be the promotersof these farming facilities, which are stronglysupported by the country’s authorities.

Turkey

State of the art

Tuna farming is a very recent activity inTurkey. The first 2 farms were operational on-ly in 2002. A total 5 tuna farms were in placein the country in 2003, worth 38 floatingcages. Between 1600-1880 tonnes of tunawere introduced into the cages in 2002. Thatyear, all the production was exported toJapan. Turkish purse seiners caught all tunaentered into Turkish cages in 2002 and 2003.


In 2002, villagers opposed to a tunafarm project in Assos and won the court caseagainst the farm promoters.

As mentioned earlier, Turkey doesn’thave any fishing right on the Mediterraneanbluefin tuna stock according to ICCAT (noquota has been allocated to Turkey for thewhole period 2003-2006). This means that tu-na farming production in Turkey based on lo-cal captures would qualify as IUU-related (il-legal) production, in contravention of ICCATrules for the management of the stock.

Other

According to reliable information,Lebanon and Syria would be ready to start tu-

na farming activities. Given that these coun-tries are not contracting parties to ICCAT,there is a real risk that they become the farm-ing equivalent of flag of convenience vessels,that is, that they be used to overcome inter-nationally agreed ICCAT rules.

6. Tuna farming: the statisticalnightmare that underminesmanagement

Right after the running of the first tunafarms in the Mediterranean, in late 90’s, it be-come apparent to tuna experts that this newpractice, if not strictly regulated, would exac-erbate the chronic problem of the reliability offishing statistics for tuna in the Mediter-ranean. This is a crucial aspect since themanagement system for this species in theregion is based on catch quotas, allocated byICCAT to the different countries. This meansthat failing to know the right catch figures un-dermines any attempt to assess compliancewith management measures, which promotesillegal fishing (IUU fisheries). Besides, any ra-tional management of fish stocks must rely onregular stock assessments, which require asinput data precise information about catchesand size composition of fish caught. Bothkinds of information are almost impossible toobtain under the new fish-for-farming schemeunless specific strict and reliable reportingmechanisms are adopted.

Already in 1998, the Standing Commit-tee on Research and Statistics (SCRS) of IC-CAT warned that uncertainty associated tocatches had increased due to the develop-ment of tuna farming.

In the report of the 5th meeting of theGFCM/ICCAT Working Group held in 2000,explicit reference is made to the fact that“some bluefin tuna transhipped after catchfrom purse seine to farming cages might notbe included in the catch statistics of the flagcountry of fishing vessels, particularly whenthe nationality of fishing country and the fishfarms are different”. Indeed, the Japanese tu-na expert Miyake (2001) states that “the worstproblem” with tuna farming is that this prac-

17


tice has further confused catch statistics be-cause of transhipments at sea and the lack ofdata on fish weight at capture. In fact, ICCATscientists were unable to implement the as-sessment of the stock scheduled in 2000 dueto the lack of reliable input data.

In 2001, the scientific body of ICCAT(the SCRS) pointed out that catch figures for1999 and 2000 were difficult to evaluate be-cause of increasing uncertainty about 1) in-formation from fish fattening operations andits relation to reported national statistics and2) bluefin tuna import statistics. It also ac-knowledged being “especially concerned withthe lack of ability to accurately track catches,catch at size, origin of catches and fishing ef-fort expended on fish that are farmed incages”. With these considerations, it warnedthat due to these facts, the detail of the stockassessment scheduled in 2002 and the sub-sequent level of management advice wouldbe limited.

The 6th meeting of the GFCM/ICCATWorking Group held in 2002 stressed onceagain the problems posed by tuna farming onthe statistical reporting and the managementof the stock, to which they add other potentialeffects on the environment and on the so-cioeconomy of coastal areas. In particular, itwarned about a potential “General increase infishing effort of purse seiners and, in the fu-ture, probable increase towards small tomedium size bluefin tuna”.

Finally, regarding the last stock assess-ment made by the ICCAT scientists in 2002,the low quality of the input information avail-able led the SCRS to conclude that it was notpossible to make definitive management rec-ommendations based on the results obtained,since they were not considered to be reliableenough. Once again, the SCRS stated that fishfattening had probably led to deterioration inthe collection of catch statistics, which resultedin a recognised uncertainty in catch figures.

In essence, this was the ultimate explic-it recognition by bluefin tuna specialists of theimpossibility to carry out a rational manage-ment of the stock under current conditions.

7. Tuna farming is increasing thefishing effort on the severelyoverfished bluefin tuna stock

The fact that tuna farming created a newproduct for the Japanese market (a mediumquality Mediterranean tuna sushi, now afford-able to millions of middle class citizens awareof the excellent quality of Mediterranean tu-na), has had the logic consequence to furtherincrease the fishing pressure on the tuna pop-ulation. It is now crystal clear that rather thanbeing a purely ‘post-harvesting practice’, dis-connected from the capture fishery, tunafarming in the Mediterranean is indeed theforce driving the fishery, both dimensions fish-ing and farming being inextricably linked. Itcannot be argued any longer that the fisheryis already adequately managed through thecurrent quota allocation system, deserving tofarming only a marginal attention related tothe need to improve data reporting and re-ducing side environmental impacts. Indeed,the worst environmental impact of currentfarming is the effect it has on the integrity ofthe wild population itself.

The first consequence of tuna farmingon the fishery has been to strongly privilegehigh tech purse seining in front all the otherfishing gears in the Mediterranean, given theinterest of the industry to secure live capturesto fill the cages. This, in turn, has resulted inan increasing vertical integration of the busi-ness through either formal agreements be-tween tuna fishing shipowners and farmersor, directly, through the direct involvement ofthe farming industry in fishing operations (likethe case of Murcian producers who ownsome units of the Spanish and French purseseining fleet). Another direct consequencehas been the rapid increase in purse seiningfishing capacity. Fuelled by the high demandfrom Mediterranean farms, the French andSpanish tuna purse seine fleets have under-went an intense modernization the last fewyears (including vessel replacement by highlyefficient new units), thanks to the generousutilisation of EU funds. Obviously, this has re-sulted in a net increase in their fishing capac-ity. In other countries, projects for the buildingof new purse seining fleets have been made

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public (like in Algeria or Greece), with the un-hidden purpose to support new tuna farmingactivities. The case of Turkey is especiallyparadigmatic in the sense that tuna farmingproduction is currently booming linked to do-mestic purse seine catches, in spite of nothaving been allocated any quota from ICCATfor bluefin tuna for the whole period 2003-2006.

All evidences point that after only 6years of tuna farming practices in the Mediter-ranean, tuna farming have reached overca-pacity with respect of fishing possibilities ofpurse seine fleets in the Mediterranean as de-termined by the total quota issued by ICCAT(see table 3).

From these data and recent informationon the activity of tuna fleets it is clear that, byfar, the bulk of purse seine catches on theEastern Atlantic bluefin tuna stock are madein the Mediterranean, as it is clearly shown byfigures relative to 1998 and 1999 (more than90% of total purse seine catch originated inthe Mediterranean). Accordingly, total purseseine catches on this stock may be roughlyassumed to originate in the Mediterranean.

The amount of bluefin tuna caged forfarming in the Mediterranean in 2002, esti-mated from industry data and presented byJapan in a paper submitted to the ICCATMeeting held in Dublin in 2003 amounts to atotal 14,620 t. If compared to purse seine pro-duction in 2002 shown in the table above(15830 t), it is clear that that year virtually all

purse seine catches in the Mediterraneanwere caged into tuna farms. This suggeststhat any further sharp increase in farmed pro-duction in the Mediterranean with respect of2002 figures would forcedly originate from il-legal overquota catches, given the currentcatch limit set by ICCAT at 32,000 tonnes peryear for 2003-2006, that represents a theoret-ical freeze in fishing effort.

Nevertheless, by departing from this“saturation point” reached in 2002, informa-tion available for 2003 indicates a clearly

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Table 3. Evolution of catches (in tonnes) on the Eastern Atlantic bluefin tunastock and the share of purse seine production (ICCAT)

1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002

Purse seinecatches (total)

26,344 25,006 21,608 15,636 17,341 17,324 15,830

Purse seinecatches (Med.)

— — 20,391 14,061 — — —

Catch (total) 50,762 46,758 39,097 32,454 33,752 34,562 0,343

• Around 90% of the purse seine catchesover Eastern Atlantic Bluefin Tuna stocktakes place at the Mediterranean.

• Practically all purse seine catches in theMediterranean Sea are conducted to Tu-na Farming.

• In 2003, 21.000 tonnes of Bluefin Tunawere introduced in Tuna farms (Japa-neese Official Data).

• In the last years, the annual purse seinecatches is around half of the total BluefinTuna catches.

• Taking 2003 Japaneese Oficial Data asa reference, WWF estimates that totalcatches would passed widely the 32.000tonnes limit fixed by ICCAT for this year.

Tuna farming in numbers

alarming trend. The report of the 2nd meetingof the ad hoc GFCM/ICCAT Working Groupon Tuna Farming in the Mediterranean, heldin Turkey in December 2003, reports that ac-cording to data from the Japanese industry,about 21,000 tonnes of bluefin tuna were in-troduced in Mediterranean cages in 2003.Whereas it is not clear if this estimate also in-cludes inputs into unreported farms alreadyoperational that year in countries like Tunisiaand Libya, it agrees with other well-informedsources that pointed to a farming capacity inMediterranean farms in 2003 amounting to25,000 tonnes. Given that this live tuna wasalmost exclusively supplied by purse seiners(except a marginal amount from traps), it isworth highlighting that the table above clearlysuggests that Mediterranean purse seinecatches higher that 21,000 tonnes have onlyhistorically been met with total captures of40,000 tonnes or more. Clearly, this level ofpurse seine catch is not compatible with a to-tal annual quota of 32,000 for the years 20032006, as it is currently in force.

To these clear evidences of increasingcatches driven by farming, it adds anotheralarming fact verified last year, presumablyrelated to it: the dramatic, massive transfer offishing capacity from a highly industrialisedfleet operating in tropical high seas into theMediterranean, promoted by the EuropeanUnion and Libya.

In 2002, ICCAT laid down a Recommen-dation (02-21) that fixed the rules for vesselchartering operations. Charter arrangementsinvolve two nations that must be ContractingParties to the ICCAT Convention and consistin the temporary transfer of fishing boats tothird countries’ waters. Chartered vesselskeep their flag of origin, though captures ob-tained are counted against the quota allocat-ed to the chartering country. Following thelaying down of these provisions, the EU trans-ferred to Libya under a charter arrangementone vessel belonging to a fleet of 3 industrialpurse seiners formerly targeting tuna in theSouthern Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. Thewhole fleet was authorized to operate in theICCAT area (including the Mediterranean) forthe whole of 2003.

The origin of this fleet is very wellknown. Formerly belonging to the Breton so-ciety Armement Coopératif Finistérien (ACF),in 1999 the three vessels were integrated in-to the new branch Comasud, under the con-trol of the French multinational Intermarché.The concerned vessels are the Île Tristan,Santa Maria and Armen, built between 1975and 1983 and with a desk length of about 55-m each.

According to the shipowning company,the three Comasud vessels have an annualjoint fishing capacity of 13000 t. This is tentimes the quota allocated to Libya by ICCAT(1286 t), to which the transferred vessel —theSanta María— was supposed to stick in 2003.This ‘theoretical’ quota constraint contrastswith the harvests obtained by these vesselsduring their 1998 fishing season in the At-lantic and Indian Ocean, which ranged from2556 to 3198 tonnes of tuna each. This pointsto each vessel capturing that year more thandouble the whole Libyan quota, to which theSanta Maria was formally bound last year.Clearly, from a cost-benefit point of view thismismatch between fishing capacity and quotais a total non-sense, which makes virtually im-possible for this kind of overcapacited vesselsto respect such ‘low’ quota limits. The worstthing is that this dramatic increase in fishingcapacity on the overexploited tuna stock inthe Mediterranean was made with the bless-ing of the European Union and Libya, whichtook advantage of ICCAT’s new provisions tocreate the conditions to potentially undermineICCAT’s conservation measures, by increas-ing the fishing pressure on bluefin tuna in theMediterranean. Even worse, this transfer ofcapacity was made the first year that the so-called ‘Multiyear Conservation and Manage-ment Plan for Bluefin Tuna in the East Atlanticand Mediterranean’, adopted by ICCAT in2002, entered into force. Ironically, this ICCATdecision is supposed to stabilize the annualcatches at 32,000 tonnes for the period 2003-2006.

As it has been reported earlier, it is afact that tuna farms have already been oper-ational in Libya in 2003, in spite of this coun-

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try failing to report to ICCAT their activities, aswas explicitly required to do. This fact, alongwith the strong increase in live tuna demandfrom purse seiners in 2003 by Mediterraneantuna farms described above, makes it difficultnot to relate the activity of this chartered ves-sel to the increased requirements of the tunafarming industry in the region.

8. The limits of the Japanese marketfor tuna

It is well known that Japan is the mainmarket for tuna from world fisheries; it is al-so the underlying force driving the currentdevelopment of the tuna-fishing sector in theMediterranean. Farmed tuna from theMediterranean has a higher oil content thanits Australian equivalent and is more appre-ciated in Japan because the oil gives theflesh a more reddish colour which makes itmore attractive. Mediterranean farmed tunais either exported fresh by air-cargo or, moreusually, deep-frozen by means of cargo ves-sels.

Import of farmed tuna from the Mediter-ranean increased dramatically in Japan since1997, to the extent that 80% of Mediterraneantuna imported in 2002 was of farming origin(see table 4). Interestingly, in his report on In-ternational Marketing of Farmed Bluefin Tunasubmitted to the GFCM/ICCAT WG on TunaFarming, the Japanese tuna specialist P.Miyake warns that “the Japanese market isnot as large as many people believe” and that“the price of high quality fish is very sensitiveto the quantity of fish sold daily in the market”.Tuna farming from the Mediterranean is mas-sively shipped to Japan by the end of theyear, when prices are still high and there is ahigh demand for the New Year.

All indications in late 2003 pointed to thesaturation of the Japanese market due to theoverproduction of farmed tuna from theMediterranean. As a result, in 2003 pricesfetched by Mediterranean farmed tuna in theJapanese market fell down due to an over-supply crisis, which also affected imports ofwild tuna from North America and those of

farmed southern bluefin tuna (about 8,000tonnes of this latter product are importedevery year in Japan, mainly from Australia).This fact uncovered the paradox that thestrong and extremely rapid development in theproduction of farmed tuna in the Mediter-ranean during the last years had been madefollowing a purely short-term perspective,seeking immediate huge benefits, without tak-ing into consideration the economical sustain-ability of the business vis-à-vis of internationalmarkets (not to speak about the commitmentwith the sustainability of the fishery).

As several sources point out, the marketprice for Mediterranean farmed tuna by theend of 2003 —the peak of the ‘harvest’ sea-son- was well below the cost of production forSpanish tuna farms. Consequently, a largeamount of tuna was stored frozen. In April2004, right before the start of the new tunafishing season a significant share of this pro-duction (mainly belonging to R. Fuentes)

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Table 4. Total Bluefin Tuna imports to Japan from tuna farming byMediterranean countrys (2002)

Japanese Imports* (t)

Country Farmed Total

Croatia 3,150 3,491

Cyprus -— 6

France — 97

Greece —- 397

Italy 1,640 2,602

Libya — 216

Malta 2,351 2,637

Spain 6,006 6,925

Tunisia — 358

Turkey 1,405 1,405

Total 14,553 18,135

* In estimated round weight.Source: P. Miyake for ICCAT & GFCM, estimated from BTSD data.

would still be waiting to be placed into themarket. This situation was bitterly denouncedby the artisanal tuna fishermen, who faceenormous problems to get access to the in-ternational markets, already dominated by theexcess of production generated the previousseason.

A this stage, faced to both, the overex-ploitation of the wild stock driven by fishingand farming overcapacity and the oversupplyto the Japanese market, the rational reactionwould be reducing production. Instead, thefarming industry keeps engaged in a furtherincrease in farmed production in the Mediter-ranean —fuelled by public subsidies in EUcountries— whilst desperately trying to opennew markets, especially in the USA, Europeand other Asian countries.

9. Subsidies to tuna farms: incentivesto overexploit the wild stock

Illegitimate funds, little transparency

The exponential growth of the tuna fat-tening industry during last 6 years has led tothe saturation of the Japanese market andhas put in crisis the whole tuna sector in2003-2004. However, companies involved inthese activities are still able to keep a con-tinued expansion thanks to public aids. Fun-damentally through the Financial Instrumentfor Fishing Guidance (FIFG) these compa-nies receive funds aimed at the increasing ofaquaculture capacity and modernization,processing, cold stores building, auxiliaryvessels purchase, research etc. The wholeproductive cycle has been supported bypublic funds since the tuna purse seiningfleet —that operates to supply live tuna tothe farms— has been also created and mod-ernized through FIFG aids during the lastyears.

After the adoption of the new Commonfisheries Policy (CFP) in December 2002(Regulation EC 2371/2002), the Communitylegislation is stricter regarding the integra-tion of environmental considerations in fish-ing management and important modifica-

tions have been made regarding FIFG appli-cation criteria (Regulation EC 2369/2002).Unfortunately, though, key gaps remain un-solved, such as the possibility for the tunafarming industry to benefit from current FIFGfunding lines aimed at the development offish farming which constitutes a real legalloophole.

Though subsidies for fleet renewal willbe eliminated after 2004, this decision comeslate regarding the conservation of bluefin tunabecause the Community purse seine fleet ex-ploiting this resource has already beenstrongly renewed in the last few years. Also,as mentioned above, the new FIFG Regula-tion still keeps financing environmentally un-sustainable activities like tuna farming. Subsi-dies, including FIFG aids and other matchingfunds provided by national and regional ad-ministrations, can cover up to 75% of the in-vestment (Regulation EC 1451/2001).

Identifying and quantifying these subsi-dies, despite their public nature, is a verycomplex task. On one hand the EuropeanCommission officially acknowledges to WWFthat it is not able to identify among aquacul-ture projects financed by the EU those devot-ed to tuna farming. On the other hand, incountries like France or Italy, obtaining infor-mation on this topic is extraordinarily difficult.In Spain, where transparency seems to besomewhat higher, the information is scat-tered, often badly elaborated and always dif-ficult to process.

Though the Government of Murcia Re-gion (SE Spain) ceased to made public thelist of beneficiaries from FIFG aids in 2000, ithas just provided this information to WWF.The government has also provided partial in-formation on this issue.

As for other countries, it must be high-lighted that quantitative information on subsi-dies was not provided in none of the Nation-al Reports on tuna farming submitted to theJoint GCFM/ICCAT Working Group on Sus-tainable Tuna Farming in the Mediterranean,which was supposed to analyze this topic.

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Aids to increase of aquaculture capacityand processing

Despite the clear environmental com-mitments contained in the Strategy for theSustainable Development of the EuropeanAquaculture (COM 2002, 511), the EU is stillallowing tuna farms benefiting from FIFGfunds on aquaculture.

According to the information providedby the Spanish General Direction for Fish-eries, public subsides aimed at aquacultureactivities allocated to the Murcia Regionamounted to 5,960,160 € for the period1994-2003. These subsides have mainlybeen granted to the tuna farming industry.The detailed figures provided by MurcianGovernment for 1999 (Suplemento num. 1del B.O.R.M. nº 107 del 2000) and 2000-2003 (internal file) support this assertion:aids allocated to tuna farming amounted to2,541,054.26 € (under the funding line:“aquaculture development”). In the same pe-riod, other aids to the tuna farming industryfrom other FIFG funding lines (e.g. process-ing) amounted to 1,922,788.73 €. Thus, onlyin the Murcia Region subsides given to tunafarming companies reached 4.5 millions € inthe years analyzed. These subsides havebeen given to the three industrial groups de-voted to this activity. In the period 1994-2003public aids covered 57 % of total investmentsrelated to aquaculture projects benefitingfrom public financing in this region.

From the partial available information forthe Murcia Region presented above, WWFestimates that at least 6 million € of publicfunds have been allocated to the develop-ment of tuna farming capacity in the whole ofSpain. This figure rises to at least 9 million €if other FIFG aids benefiting this industry areincluded. This is a conservative estimate thatdoes not consider other existing subsidies.

The Italian case is more difficult to bedealt with since public information regardingthis topic is largely unavailable. Nevertheless,by extrapolating to the Italian industry thesubsidies rate in Spain, and considering infor-mation from the Italian industry, an estimate

of around 2 million € of public money devot-ed to tuna farming facilities emerges.

Aids to fleet modernization

The high-tech purse seine fleet, that usesaerial support to detect tuna shoals and evenreal-time satellite information, is a direct com-petitor regarding the other sectors that havetraditionally exploited the same shared re-source using trap nets, long lines or hand lines.

Public subsidies cover the whole fish-ing-and-farming process. The Spanish purseseiner fleet (6 vessels) has been completelyrenewed with subsidies in the recent years.Between 2000 and 2002 five of this vessels,based in Catalonia (NE Spain), have been ful-ly renewed, increasing tonnage and horsepower by a factor of two or three compared tothe old vessels they replaced. The vesselLeonardo Brull II is an illustrative example.This 241 GT and 1.320 HP purse seiner hasreceived 705.728 € (from FIFG) for its con-struction (total cost is 2,06 million € ) replac-ing the former Leonardo Brull, characterisedby only 113,73 GT and 560 HP.

These vessels either belong to or workfor the tuna farming companies and their in-creased fishing capacity translates into ahigher pressure on the stock. Public aids allo-cated to the modernization of this fleet wouldbe around 3,5 Million €.

The powerful French purse seiner fleet(composed by 40 high-tech units) has beenrenewed at 85% level during the last 10 years;once again, gathering detailed information onthe public subsidies involved is a very difficulttask. Just as an indication, the French regionof Languedoc-Roussillon has provided around2,5 Million € to the modernization of this fleet,out of a total investment of 27,5 Million €. Thisfleet is a main supplier of live tuna to farmsfrom all around the Mediterranean.

WWF has no information on the Italiancase. However, taking into account that Italyis the third country that most benefited fromEU funds to fleet modernisation (70,07 Mil-

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lions € in FIFG 2000-2006), it is reasonablethinking that part of this budget has alsoreached the tuna purse seiner sector. This isall the more likely if considering that in the pe-riod 2000-2001, coinciding with the develop-ment of tuna farming in the region, this seg-ment of the fleet has increased its total GT by22,88 % and its total horse power by 19,73%.

Conclusion

From the available information it is pos-sible to make a rough estimate of the totalamount of public funding that has contributedto the spectacular growth of the tuna farmingindustry during the last few years. WWF con-servatively estimates that at least 19-20 Mil-lion € of public funds have been allocated tothe different stages of the whole fish-and-farming productive cycle.

Despite current fish-and-farming prac-tices are not aquaculture they highly benefitfrom the existing aids aimed at the develop-ment of this sector. These illegitimate subsi-dies are directly resulting in overcapacity andoverfishing in the Mediterranean and shouldbe immediately removed.

It can’t be ignored any longer the inextri-cable reliance of tuna farming on capture fish-eries: the maintenance of subsidies to tunafarming constitutes a legal loophole thatstrongly violates the key principle underliningthe recent reform of structural aids to fisheriesin the EU of phasing out all subsidies promot-ing overfishing or destructive practices. Therecent accession to EU of countries like Mal-ta or Cyprus with important tuna farming ac-tivities makes even more urgent putting anend to this situation.

10. The myth of tuna domestication: a win-win alliance between thefarming industry and aquaculturescientists (to the detriment of thewild stock)

Right from the start of tuna farming inthe Mediterranean, in 1998, a far-reaching al-

liance was set up involving 50 experts from12 countries, representing scientific and com-mercial entities. They called themselvesDOTT (domestication of Thunnus thynnus)and according to their own words, the groupobjective was “to lay the foundation for co-op-erative research and development, for the do-mestication of Thunnus thynnus”. A big con-ference was held in Spain in early 2002organized by this lobby group.

This alliance between the farming indus-try and aquaculture scientists, strongly sup-ported by some public research institutions(like IFREMER, in France), has a cleartwofold objective. On one hand, it deliberate-ly tries to create confusion between currenttuna farming practices and the idea of the fulldomestication of tuna, to the benefit of the in-dustry. On the other, it provides a big oppor-tunity to aquaculture scientists to get publicfunding.

Indeed, to justify their reliance on a se-verely overexploited stock, tuna farmers claimto be committed to the evolution of currentpractices towards a closed aquaculture cycle(that is, the reproduction in captivity of thespecies), a situation that would make their ac-tivity independent from the overfished wildstock. Accordingly, current capture and farm-ing practices would be just a provisional firststep towards the permanent solution of thedomestication. Besides, farmers seek to culti-vate an apparently good image, by facilitatingscientific research on live tuna in their facili-ties, which makes them being well consideredby the authorities and scientific research cen-tres (not to speak about their economic con-tribution to symposia, etc.). This permanentattempt to confound tuna farming practicesand aquaculture has also the purpose tomake current farming practices being eligiblefor public subsidies to aquaculture, somethingthat is currently happening in the EU frame-work. This situation tries to mask the fact thatthe farming industry is driven by short-termbenefits of fish-and-farming practices, noteven being committed to the long-term sur-vival of the very stock they exploit. Clearly, ahypothetical long-term domestication is not intheir real agenda. This is so because tuna

24


farmers are primarily investors, seeking tomaximize short-term benefits for the capitalthey have channelled, attracted by the hugebenefits obtained during the first boomingyears of activity.

On the other hand, scientists benefitfrom increased opportunities of research onlive caged tuna, and, especially, from publicfunding possibilities. For the latter purpose,all kind of demagogic arguments are em-ployed. Since the creation of this lobbygroup, the related specialists are trying toconvince the EU about the need to create aEuropean research center exclusively devot-ed to tuna domestication, claiming that ifachieved it would be a landmark in the histo-ry of livestock domestication. Misleading ar-guments like that ‘fully domesticated tuna willreplace beef in the future’ (stated by the co-ordinator of the group at the peak of the madcow disease crisis) or that future tuna hatch-eries would allow restocking operations to re-build the depleted wild stock are intentionallyemployed to convince the public opinion andthe authorities that they deserve the hugefunding they require (for the sake of hu-mankind, they say), in spite of being scientif-ically inconsistent.

Indeed, the reproduction of tuna in cap-tive condition has been achieved only veryrecently in Japan, under experimental condi-tions. Survival rates of larvae are very lowand the process is considerably expensive.Clearly, there are no prospects for the com-mercial production of bluefin tuna under tru-ly aquaculture conditions (captive reproduc-tion) in the foreseeable future. Besides,overwhelming arguments from the perspec-tive of the ecological sciences make thispossibility a scientific non-sense. Aquacul-ture of carnivore species is facing a strongcrisis due to the related requirements ofhuge amounts of wild caught feedfish (in acontext of increasing global overfishing anddiminishing captures from the oceans). Infact, tuna is a top predator, highly carnivorespecies, so it is undoubtedly the worst can-didate for large-scale sustainable aquacul-ture practices. Indeed, current food conver-sion rates reported in Mediterranean tuna

farms are about 15-25 kg of baitfish to pro-duce 1 kg of tuna, which points to it being anextremely wasteful practice. In this context,it can be easily understood why the recentstatement of a representative of DOTT lobbygroup at a GFCM/ICCAT meeting on tunafarming in the sense that ‘expected bluefintuna production raised in captivity under ful-ly domestication conditions would amount to30 million tonnes in 2025’ comes totally outof the blue. The related amount of feedfishneeded would far exceed the entire globalmarine fish landings.

As for the idea of restocking of the wildstock using domestically hatched larvae, itarises from a profound scientific ignorance.As every fish ecologist know, fish recruitmentis a complex process governed by many biot-ic and abiotic factors which determine fish lar-vae survival, it going far beyond the release offish hatchlings into the ocean. The early lifehistory of bluefin tuna in the Mediterraneanand the related recruitment processes areseldom know. Whereas artificial restockinglies entirely in the domain of science fiction,tuna farming is a proven threat to the integri-ty of wild populations.

It is time to uncover the false mythsspread by those with vested interests in tunafarms, and let the public opinion and the au-thorities know what is really hidden behindthem: the idea of the domestication of bluefintuna, at least in the Mediterranean, is merelya cosmetic mask to hidden the current de-struction of the wild bluefin tuna stock drivenby booming fish-for-farming practices.

11. WWF initiatives and positivedevelopments towards theregulation of tuna farming and therelated fisheries

Since early 2001, WWF has been ac-tively working to achieve a rational manage-ment of tuna farming practices in theMediterranean by 1) increasing awarenessabout the impact of booming, unregulatedtuna farming on the conservation of the

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bluefin tuna wild stock and the related arti-sanal fisheries and 2) proactively promotingthe development of regional-wide policiesaiming at the sustainability of tuna fishingand farming practices.

Extensive media work in the form of in-ternational press releases and conferences,radio and TV interviews and reports in thespecialized press have been issued alongthe last 3 years, to warn about the magni-tude of the threat posed by emerging tunafarming in the region on the integrity of thehighly decimated Mediterranean stock ofbluefin tuna. In summer 2002, though, in thecontext of a field survey to the farms locatedoff Cartagena, in SW Spain, tuna farm work-ers deliberated crashed their vessel againsta small zodiac carrying a mixed team of ma-rine experts belonging to WWF and the localorganisation ANSE, putting their lives at risk.On the technical side, in early 2002, afterputting together all relevant —but still con-siderably scant— information available atthat time on the situation, trends and per-spectives of tuna farming in the region,WWF launched the first version of this re-port, which soon became a reference docu-ment for researchers working on the sus-tainability of mariculture practices.

On top of that, WWF experts have ac-tively contributed to workshops and seminarson tuna farming in Spain and Turkey, orga-nized in close connection with the sector, tolet them and the public managers knowabout WWF’s concerns on the lack of sus-tainability of current practices and trends, al-ways proposing possible regulatory mea-sures to make this activity sustainable. Aspecial effort has been made to promote theadoption of policies to make the activity sus-tainable with respect of the conservation ofthe wild stock of tuna and the integrity of ma-rine ecosystems. At this regard, WWF hasbeen very active in regional fisheries man-agement bodies like the General FisheriesCommission for the Mediterranean (GFCM)and ICCAT to put the issue of the sustain-ability of tuna farming in the Mediterranean inthe political agenda of these multilateral or-ganisations. Parallel work has been done re-

garding national and regional governmentsfrom all around the Mediterranean, includingthe EU.

A major landmark —for that it was thefirst time that tuna farming was addressedby the regional management bodies— wasthe endorsement by the 27th Session of theGFCM in late 2002 of a formal request pre-sented earlier by WWF to the SubComitteeon Stock Assessment of the Scientific andAdvisory Committee of GFCM, resulting inthe creation of a specific ad hoc JointGFCM/ICCAT working Group on SustainableTuna Farming Practices in the Mediter-ranean aimed at developing guidelines forsustainable practices. An expert from WWFwas invited to join this WG. This WG mettwice during the year 2003. Besides, anoth-er relevant policy outcome has been the re-cent adoption by ICCAT of Recommendation03-09, in November 2003, setting up themechanism for the compulsory statistical re-porting to ICCAT of the amounts of tunacaged and produced in farms, as well as es-tablishing a ‘positive list’ where to include ofall tuna farming facilities authorised by thecountries and allowed to operate for farmingof bluefin tuna caught in the ICCAT area.Unfortunately, it has taken 7 years to adoptthis necessary, basic regulation since thestrong start of tuna farming activities in theMediterranean in the mid 90’s. Indeed, it hasbeen laid down at a moment when tunafarming has completely reshaped the tunafishery in the region and still falls consider-ably short in ensuring a real improvement ofthe situation.

WWF has also sought the creation ofsynergies by enhancing common actionswith local NGO’s dealing with the harmful ef-fects of tuna farming in their respectiveMediterranean countries. The network ofMediterranean organisations —including in-dependent, locally-based NGO’s and differ-ent WWF offices— closely monitoring tunafarming developments and denouncing badpractices related to tuna farms include Spain,Croatia, France, Italy, Malta, Morocco,Turkey, Tunisia, Cyprus and Greece. In Oc-tober 2002 a monographic workshop was

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held in Cartagena (Spain), the world’s capitalof tuna farming, gathering together represen-tatives from the above network on NGO’swith the aim to analyse the situation and de-veloping proposals to remedy the negativetrends. Coinciding with the end of the meet-ing a common declaration was launched,known as ‘Cartagena Call for Action for Sus-tainable Tuna Farming in the Mediterranean’(see Annex 1). Among other things, this doc-ument warned that the massive expansion intuna farming was threatening the alreadyover-fished wild tuna in the Mediterraneanand asked for a moratorium on the develop-ment of new tuna farms in the Mediter-ranean. It also urged the governmentsaround the Mediterranean, the managementbodies ICCAT and GFCM, and in particularthe European Union to regulate this new ac-tivity and called for an elimination of all sub-sidies supporting tuna farming. Barely onemonth after its international release, about100 scientific experts and organizations fromall around the Mediterranean and beyondhad already signed the declaration, whichwas then brought to the 13th Special Meetingof ICCAT held in November 2002 in Bilbao(Spain).

12. Bad prospects for the future: tunafarming is getting definitely out ofcontrol, only driven by marketforces

In spite of a few recent apparent im-provements from international fisheries man-agement bodies, the pace of destruction ofthe wild stock of bluefin tuna inhabiting theMediterranean is clearly spiralling out drivenby tuna farming overcapacity. This is happen-ing without any kind of real public control, tothe point that the only hope for this unsus-tainable pressure to slow down lies on the un-certain future trajectories of blind marketforces themselves.

Certainly, it has been an improvementthat ICCAT finally decided to regulate the sta-tistical reporting of bluefin tuna by specificallyaccounting for the very existence of tuna

farms (Recom. 02-10 and 03-09). Clearly, thisdecision comes 5 years too late, at a momentwhen virtually all purse seine catches are al-ready transferred to farms, and after severalyears of continuous complains by scientistsbelonging to ICCAT’s working groups arguingthat tuna farming was absolutely distortingthe capture statistics and size compositiondata that are crucial for stock assessments,which undermined the possibility to carry outany rational management of the stock. Inspite of this and of clear signs that farminghas reached overcapacity, which leads to in-crease the fishing pressure on the stock, IC-CAT still tends to consider tuna farming as a‘post-harvesting practice’, having no direct re-lationship with fisheries …

Too late and all but sufficient. Aswarned by some of the best specialists onbluefin tuna fisheries met in Turkey with theoccasion of the GFCM/ICCAT WorkingGroup on Tuna Farming in 2003, ICCAT Rec-ommendation 03-09 establishing the infor-mation from farms that is to be sent by thecountries to ICCAT doesn’t ensure that thismanagement organisation receives all thenecessary information about the completefish-and-farming process. In fact, it onlyobliges countries to report to ICCAT the totalquantity of bluefin tuna caged and marketedon an annual basis, which makes impossibleto know the origin of tuna caged and, evenless, allowing the necessary traceability oftraded tuna from farming origin.

This situation is all the more worryingsince the ICCAT Bluefin Tuna Statistical Doc-ument (BFTSD), a document that must befilled describing any international transaction(import) involving bluefin tuna, doesn’t applyto live tuna, thus failing to cover all tranship-ments at sea from purse seiners to tugboats/farms that are intrinsic to the nowprevalent tuna farming practices in theMediterranean. Furthermore, the BFTSDdoesn’t apply to transactions between EUcountries, which would continue to masktransfers between fleets and farms fromFrance, Spain, Malta, Italy and Cyprus evenin the case this loophole were finally elimi-nated.

27


Furthermore, during the farming periodthe weight of tuna is thought to increase sig-nificantly, which adds further uncertaintyabout catch figures if looking at farmed pro-duction (a by-default value of 25% is used inICCAT estimates of original figures). Thismay have strong implications for the controlof quota, since there is room for coun-tries/farms to argue high weight gains intheir farms to hidden excess catches. At thisregard, it is noteworthy the broad range ofweight gain percentage reported for farms inItaly, Spain and Turkey (from 10% to 50%).

Finally, the delocalisation process ofEuropean farms (usually Spanish) towardsNorth African countries —even if equallybound to ICCAT obligations—, looking formuch less control for their activities is al-ready in place, what has led to some tospeak about ‘IUU farms’ spreading aroundthe Mediterranean (mimicking the concept ofIUU —illegal— fishing). It is worth stressing

again that Libya and Tunisia didn’t reportedtheir farming activities to the GFCM/ICCATWG on Tuna Farming last year, after havingbeen formally required to do so, which does-n’t allow to be very optimistic about the realefficacy of the ‘positive list’ of authorizedfarms provided for by ICCAT Recommenda-tion 03-09.

In this context, it is not surprising thatone of the world’s leading experts on bluefintuna trading describes tuna farming as it cur-rently happens in the Mediterranean as theBIG LAUNDRY MACHINE.

During 2003 WWF contributed activelyto the two meetings of the GFCM/ICCATWorking Group on Sustainable Tuna Farm-ing/Fattening Practices in the Mediterraneanthat were conducted. After realizing the lackof willingness of the working group to addressthe real problems posed by tuna farming onthe exploitation of bluefin tuna, namely the in-

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In addition of undertaken technical reports regarding the environmental threats of tunafarming industry or attending political and Scientific international forums, WWF has organisedseveral actions to alert on this activity and its threats to bluefin tuna conservation in collabo-ration with other environmental NGOs during last years. Main petitions of these actions havebeen establishing a moratorium of new tuna farms meanwhile there is not a specific regula-tion for this activity and setting up control measures to guarantee that tuna farming does notthreaten this species wild stock

In April 2002 ANSE, Greenpeace and WWF showed a banner in the sailing boat Elsecoinciding with the EU Agriculture and Fishing ministries visit to one of the Murcia tuna farms.Else boat was retained because of a Government Delegation in Murcia order hampering togive a letter to the EU 15 ministries in Juan Sebastián El Cano sailing ship. The letter informedon the impact of this activity and the organizations requests for a sustainable tuna farming.

In August 2002 a team of divers of these organizations showed a big underwater ban-ner saying “Stop Tuna Farming” in one of the cages in Cabo Tiñoso, a high ecological valuearea protected by several legal figures. The pictures were widely spread by media.

A few weeks before, a big auxiliary vessel belonging to one of the farming companieswas deliberated crashed against a small zodiac carrying a mixed team of marine experts be-longing to ANSE and WWF that have been developing a research and monitoring program onthe impact of the farms. This aggression put their lives at risk, so that this fact was denouncedto the police in Murcia.

WWF actions against unsustainable tuna farming

creasing fishing pressure on the wild stockdriven by tuna farming, as well as the strong-ly biased composition of this working groupthat didn’t ensure a balanced output, withmany participants having evident vested in-terests on the tuna farming activity, WWFtook the decision to withdraw from thisprocess.

13. Conclusions and WWFrecommendations

As all evidences gathered in this reportstrongly suggest, the fishery of bluefin tuna inthe Mediterranean is currently driven by theincreasing demand from the tuna farming in-dustry, which ultimately relies on the demandfrom the markets and the availability of pub-lic subsidies, that reduce exploitation costs.In this context of virtual mismanagement,with enforcement of quotas impossible to val-idate, clear violations of ICCAT rules (i.e.Turkish catches), lack of information to carryout regular and reliable population assess-

ments, etc., the pre-eminent role played byinternational markets guiding the exploitationrate of this overfished stock is a completenonsense.

In the first version of this report, in May2002, we wrote: “The brief history of tunafarming in the Mediterranean does not allowus to draw any very conclusive lessons learntregarding the real magnitude of the problems.However, the rapid development of the activi-ty fuelled by the huge economic benefits in-volved creates urgency”. Now, after severalyears tightly monitoring both bluefin tuna fish-eries and the evolution of tuna fattening activ-ities in the Mediterranean we have clearlyidentified a continued devastating degrada-tion of management possibilities for the EastAtlantic stock of bluefin tuna, which leads usto state that what the situation now requires isurgent action (see above box).

Meanwhile, WWF calls for a strict andimmediate moratorium on the development ofnew tuna farms in the Mediterranean, muchbeyond the simple creation of a positive list of

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1) Establishing a specific quota for tuna caging, as a share of the total catch quota. Thisquota should be allocated to countries having purse-seining fleets in the Mediterranean, andbe calculated according to a) national purse seine fishing capacity before the start of tunafarming activities in the region and b) current fishing possibilities allocated by ICCAT.

2) Eliminating the loopholes in EU legislation that allows tuna farms benefiting fromstructural funds aimed at aquaculture development. All kind of national subsidies to thisactivity should also be dropped, for that subsidizing farms leads to increasing fishing over-capacity.

3) Modifying the current Bluefin Tuna Statistical Document (BFTSD), to be reported bycontracting parties to ICCAT informing on any trade operations involving bluefin tuna im-ports, so that it covers the transfer of live fish captured by one country into cages of anoth-er country.

4) Highly improving the statistical reporting requirements provided for by ICCAT Recom-mendation 03-09, so as to ensure the traceability of all traded tuna originating from farms inthe Mediterranean. This means a reporting system to ICCAT including highly disaggregatedinformation, at the level of the farm and even the cage, to systematically allow tracing backthe flag ultimately responsible for the catch.

WWF proposes 4 urgent basic measures to reverse this disastrous trend

nationally authorized farms as recently adopt-ed by ICCAT, which doesn’t provide for anykind of limitation in their number.

In addition to this, the whole manage-ment scheme of bluefin tuna fishing in theMediterranean should be substantially im-proved so as to enable ensuring the conser-vation and sustainable exploitation of thestock (see box below).

Unless purse seine fishing and tunafarming are regarded as steps of the sameprocess, fish-and-farming, and fully ad-dressed as a particular case of standardcapture fisheries, the right approach tosuccessfully tackle the sustainable man-agement of the stock won’t be undertaken.

30


- Establishing a comprehensive monitoring scheme of catches in real time, at both na-tional and international level, centralized by ICCAT. The fishing countries as well as ICCATmust have real time information about the total amount of bluefin tuna caught at any given mo-ment. This is a basic prerequisite to make the current quota system being of real use in theeffective management of the stock, allowing for the closure of the fishery when the quota hasbeen reached.

- Setting up a comprehensive programme of on-board observers under ICCAT. The pres-ence of observers must be compulsory for all purse seiners harvesting the Eastern Atlanticstock of bluefin tuna. They should supervise the real time reporting of catch statistics referredto above, as well ensuring the traceability of catches, from the catch to the transhipment andtransfer of live fish to farms or the landing at the ports. To this end, a new reporting systemidentifying the origin of tuna caught during each fishing operation must be put in place.

- ICCAT should substantially reduce the current quota to achieve sustainable fishing lev-els according to the scientific advice. The annual quota for the East Atlantic bluefin tuna stockadopted by ICCAT in 2002 for the period 2003-2006 is 23% higher than the maximum levelconsidered sustainable by ICCAT SCRS scientists (32,000 t and 26,000 t, respectively).

WWF proposals to ensuring the conservation and sustainable exploitation ofthe Eastern Atlantic Bluefin Tuna stock

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Conclusiones de la VI reunión del Foro Científico para la Pesca Es-pañola en el Mediterráneo. Palamós, Spain. 13-15 June 2001.

First International Symposium DOTT (Domestication of Thunnusthynnus). Book of Abstracts. Cartagena, Spain. 3-8 February2002.

GFCM (2001). Report and annexes to the Report of the 26th Sessionof the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean. Is-chia, Italy. 10-13 September 2001.

GFCM/ICCAT (2003). Report of the 2nd Meeting of the ad hoc Work-ing Group on Sustainable Tuna Farming/Fattening Practices inthe Mediterranean. Izmir, Turkey. 15-17 December 2003. 120 pp.

Miyake, P. (2001). Atlantic bluefin tuna. Research and management.Paper presented at the 13th Annual Conference of EAFE. Saler-no, Italy. 18-20 April 2001.

Oray, I.K. and Karakulak, F.S. (Eds.) (2003). Workshop on Farming,Management and Conservation of Bluefin Tuna. Turkish MarineResearch Foundation. Istanbul, Turkey. Publication Number 13.

SAC-GFCM (2001). Report of the 4th Session of the Scientific andAdvisory Committee of the GFCM. Athens, Greece. 4-7 June2001.

SAC-GFCM (2002) Report of the 5th Session of the Scientific and Ad-visory Committee of the GFCM. Rome, Italy. 1-4 July 2002.

SAC-GFCM (2003) Report of the 6th Session of the Scientific andAdvisory Committee of the GFCM. Thessaloniki, Greece. 30June 2003-3 July 2003.

SCRS-ICCAT (2001). Report of the 5th Meeting of the ad hocGFCM/ICCAT Working Group on stocks of large pelagic fishes inthe Mediterranean Sea. Col. Vol. Sci. Pap. ICCAT 52: 590-684.

SCRS-ICCAT (2001). Report of the Standing Committee on Re-search and Statistics of ICCAT. Madrid, Spain. 12-19 October2001. 200 pp.

SCRS-ICCAT (2002). Report of the Standing Committee on Re-search and Statistics of ICCAT. Madrid, Spain. 30 September-4October 2002. 194 pp.

SCRS-ICCAT (2003). Report of the 2002 Atlantic bluefin tuna stockassessment session. Col. Vol. Sci. Pap. ICCAT 55: 710-937.

SCRS-ICCAT (2003). Report of the 6th GFCM-ICCAT Meeting onstocks of large pelagic fishes in the Mediterranean. Col. Vol. Sci.Pap. ICCAT 55: 1-84.

Tudela, S. (2002). Grab, cage, fatten, sell. Samudra Report 32: 9-17.

Selected sources

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ANNEX I

The Japanese demand has been fuelling thedevelopment of tuna farm facilities in theMediterranean. More than 18,000 t of tuna areimported annually from the region.

Tuna caught by French purse seinersin Atlantic waters. France has themost powerful purse seine fleettargeting tuna in the Mediterranean.

The feeding of tuna with small pelagic fish caught byauxiliary fleets adds further pressure onMediterranean fish stocks.

Farming activities started in Croatia in 1996. Thereare currently 10 farms in the counties of Zadar,Sibernik and Split.

WWF calls for urgent action to avoidthe commercial extinction of bluefin tuna. A specific quota forfarming is needed.

Murcia is the world’s leading region on farmed tunaproduction, with an annual production in 2002reaching 107.5 million €, worth 2.12% the entireregional GNP.

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The expansion of tuna farms all around theMediterranean, like this one in Turkey, threatens thebluefin tuna stock, one of the most valuable fishresources in the Mediterranean.

Tugging of cages with live bluefin tuna to their finaldestination at the farming sites. Some of the auxiliaryboats involved in tuna farming operations benefit fromIFOP subsidies.

Auxiliar ships, subsidised and recently built, fortuna farming. The farms in Murcia Region havereceived a total amount of 4.5 Million € in four years.

IUU-related farming. Tuna farms in Turkey are entirelysupplied with live tuna caught by the national fleet,despite the absence of a quota for bluefin tunaallocated to Turkey by ICCAT.

Joint protest action by ANSE, Greenpeace and WWFin front of tuna farms in Murcia.

Hauling of bluefin tuna following their slaughter in afarm facility in Murcia. Imports from Spain exceeded6,000 t in 2002, according to the Japaneseauthorities.

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WWF’s mission is to stop the degradation of the planet’s natural environmentand to bluid a future in which humans live in harmony with nature, by:

✔ conserving the world’s biological diversity,✔ ensuring that the use of renewable natural resources is sustainable,✔ promoting the reduction of pollution and wasteful consumption.

For more information, contact:

Sergi Tudela,WWF MedPO, Barcelona, SpainPhone: +34 93 305 62 [email protected]

Raúl García,WWF/Adena, Madrid, Spain Phone: +34 91 354 05 78

[email protected]

The full text of this study is available at the following websites:www.panda.org (English version)

www.wwf.es (Spanish version)



http://www.panda.org

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