Tuna defeat's hypocritical roots
The frustration of conservation groups at the outcome of Thursday's tuna trade discussions was almost palpable.
The proposal to ban international trade in the Atlantic bluefin discussed at the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) meeting - tabled by Monaco and backed by all of the important conservation organisations working on the issue around the Mediterranean - fell by a substantial majority.
The numbers (described in the news story linked above) are a bit complex because there were actually two votes, but basically delegations voted against the proposal by almost two to one.
Recall that passing a CITES motion necessitates gaining a two-thirds majority, and it's clear just how far short the numbers fell.
The world already has organisations that are supposed to regulate commercial fisheries and ensure catches remain below danger levels. They are the Regional Fisheries Management Organisations; the one in question here is the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (Iccat).
So poorly has this body performed its task (it was declared a "disgrace" by an indepenent performance review two years ago) that conservationists have another way of interpreting its initials - the International Conspiracy to Catch All Tunas.
And it was in frustration with Iccat's annual habit of setting quotas higher than its scientists recommended (they have advised zero quotas for the last few years) that conservationists turned to a CITES ban as an alternative way of reducing the catch.
Well, it hasn't worked; and there are perhaps three major reasons why.
Firstly, there is the issue of consistency.
The largest bloc supporting the bid was the European Union.
If it is so keen to see vast reductions in tuna catches, it could accomplish this through Iccat. Instead it gets the largest share of the annual tuna catch from the Mediterranean, and as recently as the last Iccat meeting was lobbying hard against the moratorium that its own scientists had recommended.
The EU is deeply divided on the issue, with the tuna-fishing countries of Italy, Spain, and France routinely deploying the argument that its fishermen would suffer under a moratorium.
Japan - the largest bluefin consumer by a distance - has argued that it is up to the EU to put Iccat in order, rather than using a body such as CITES designed to restrict trade in endangered species.
It is a convenient argument for Japan to make; but the EU's position - giving bigger catch quotas with one hand and demanding a trade ban with the other - is so obviously inconsistent as to give it added legitimacy.
(A sign of frustration with the EU's bloc-voting strictures emerged in the day's second vote. The 27 countries were supposed to abstain on this - it sought a stronger ban than the EU had collectively decided to back - but in the secret ballot, I've been told, the UK and possibly some other EU nations as well defied the common position and voted with their consciences - a move with politically explosive potential.)
You might think that in lobbying against a CITES ban, the tuna fishers are proof of the argument that turkeys can indeed vote for Christmas, as they will have nothing to catch if the bluefin population continues to fall; you might think they would have been lobbying for a suspension rather than against it.
And this is the second point: fisheries economics isn't as simple as that, particularly in the modern era when big vessels can traverse wide tracts of ocean in search of new hauls.
As a commodity becomes scarcer, the price goes up; investing the extra short-term revenue accrued, at favourable interest rates, can be more profitable than cutting catches to ensure a sustainable fishery.
Sometimes - this is the real world, after all - fishermen also gain financial compensation from their governments if they have to scrap the ships that brought the resource to its knees in the first place.
The end of the line is sometimes a profitable place to be.
The third issue is that in a sense, what countries were arguing about here isn't fish but the universal cake.
The cake can be anything desirable. In the climate change arena, it's the atmosphere's "emissions space"; in fisheries, it's the total catch available.
It is the tragedy of the commons, with nations as the actors.
Always, the proponents of restriction argue for scaling down the size of the cake.
Always, the national interest expresses itself in trying to increase the size of that country's share of the cake.
The results are entirely predictable.
In recent years, new countries have entered the annual Mediterranean tuna race - North African countries such as Libya and Tunisia that now have enough capacity to catch a year's worth of bluefin if EU nations pulled out.
Any nation is allowed to exempt itself from CITES rulings; Japan had indicated it would exempt itself from a tuna trade ban, which meant that if North African nations did the same, the legal trade from the Med to Japan would have continued with no net impact other than on EU fleets which would now be out of the race.
These concerns led to the EU supporting only a weakened version of the CITES resolution that would have deferred the tuna ban for a year, and that could have been lifted without ever coming into effect if Iccat were to adopt measures considered to put the fishery on the road to recovery.
The report that labelled Iccat as a "disgrace" really saved its ire for member governments that routinely undermine the organisation's conservation mandate, not least by turning a blind eye to dodgy activities (such as going over quota, and even fishing illegally) by their national fleets:
"Iccat's failure to meet its objectives is due in large part to the lack of compliance by many of its CPCs (member governements)... CPCs have consistently failed to... implement monitoring, control and surveillance arrangements on nationals and national companies."
And why have national authorities not been in the habit of persecuting such matters? Because each country's agents could argue - and they were right - that all the others were doing it too, and asked themselves: why should those foreigners get a bigger slice of the cake?
The real irony here is that the North African competition only flourished because European companies (with the blessing of member governments, as is necessary) allowed and even encouraged it.
As the same report concluded:
"Developed states use foreign investment rules to place excess or additional capacity owned by their nationals or companies under the flag of developing Contracting Parties. In many cases these developing countries have inadequate monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS) arrangements..."
So what happens now?
As Jane Lyder, acting head of the US delegation at the CITES meeting in Doha, said:
"The responsibility is now on Iccat to manage the fishery in a sustainable manner. The world will be watching."
But not, presumably, holding its breath.
Comments
Sign in or register to comment.
"backed by all of the important conservation organisations"
I wonder what makes a "conservation organisation" important?
Complain about this comment
Simply the most depressing thing i've read all weak. Respect for covering this, but I almost wish you had not.
Grow up bowman. There is more to life than semantics.
Complain about this comment
Depressing, but sadly expected.
Out of interest, does anyone have a link to the full list of how nations voted?
And what happens now? Another example with Atlantic bluefin tuna to follow the collapse of Newfoundland’s cod stocks? We just have to watch another species go extinct, and the world fish stocks continued decline? And by our collective lack of any effective action we allow it to happen, even if we don’t want it too.
It seems that strong efforts to deal with the major world environmental problems of the last decades have almost consistently failed. Governments, industry and the public have often expressed the desire for greater environmental action, but when it comes to the choice for real action they have often instead put short term national, business and personal interests first. And so our environmental problems continue to get worse, and humanity's long term prosperity and positive future are threatened by an overstretched environment in many cases close to breaking point.
I hate to have such a pessimistic view, but how on earth do we change this?
If anyone has a good idea for a path to success, I’d be very glad to hear it.
Complain about this comment
It seems, after Copenhagen and this, one of the key problems we face in making any substantial progress on global environmental issues, is the fragmented tribal nation state system. Despite having a global economy and globalised culture and technology (ie the Internet), we just cannot yet develop a global political perspective on key issues. Fundamentally we are fairly pathetic squabbling little tribes still. Maybe only a worsening global environment with increasing resource depletion can either force us to make the necessary changes in our behaviour or lead to the collapse of this civilisation (ghastly though that would be) and the chance over time to start from scratch - with any luck, they (whoever "they" are), would have our example in legend or myth to show them how NOT to do things.
Complain about this comment
I don't know how other countries voted, but I do know that New Zealand voted against the CITES listing of bluefin tuna. Shocking but not surprising. The Ministry of Fisheries in NZ has recently proposed to up the NZ catch of southern bluefin tuna by 27%. This species, cousin to the mighty Atlantic bluefin, has been overfished to less than 5% of its original population and is listed by the IUCN as "critically endangered". The fact that our own stock is in an even worse state than the one being considered for CITES listing, and our government is trying to make a quick buck out of what's left, gives a pretty clear indication of their line of thinking in blocking a trade ban for bluefin. New Zealand is also joining Japan in seeking a compromise deal under the International Whaling Commission that could see commercial whaling legitimised for the first time in decades, and the government is attempting to open up our precious conservation land to mining. The New Zealand Prime Minister was quoted recently as saying commercial whaling "might be acceptable if it was acceptable to others" (http://www.stuff.co.nz/marlborough-express/news/kaikoura/3458757/Whaling-could-damage-tourism). Not exactly the sort of behaviour you expect from the plucky little country at the end of the earth that declared itself nuclear free and proceeded to turn away warships from its harbours. This sell-out of our principles and identity makes me ashamed to be kiwi.
Complain about this comment
is it also hypocritical that environmentalists applaud one UN body, when that body supports the environmental cause and decry another UN body, when that body doesn't support the environmental cause? Surely both UN bodies will have investigated thoroughly and come to the correct decision or does it only work, when the decision is in your favour?
this doesn't mean that i think over fishing is a good thing
/Mango
Complain about this comment
Karlita, the voting record should be published during the course of Friday and I'll check back in for it later.
In the meantime you can find voting records from earlier in the meeting in the summary documents here.
Complain about this comment
bowmanthebard #1: "I wonder what makes a "conservation organisation" important?"
Yorkurbantree #2: "Grow up bowman. There is more to life than semantics."
I'm trying to draw your attention to the fact that actual political forces have powers sufficient to overrule the BBC's vision of a perfect world.
There is much more to this than semantics. If Yorkurbantree et al think that we should act to curtain global warming, they have a seemingly insurmountable further problem to confront: the so-called "tragedy of the commons". This is what happens when a common grazing area is exploited to destruction because it is irrational for any individual shepherd to stop grazing his sheep there.
I cannot stress that enough: it is IRRATIONAL for any individual to stop grazing his sheep there, despite the fact that it leads to total loss for everyone concerned.
That is really what is happening with over-fishing, and will inevitably happen with fossil fuel use. If any individual fisherman stops fishing, it will be to his own loss and others' profit. There's the rub.
There is hope: very occasionally, overfishing is successfully tackled, when individuals are forced to do things that are not in their own interest by higher powers (such as the military might of governments of individual nations rather than the UN). I think the hope of something similar happening with fossil fuel use is zero. (That doesn't worry me in the least, of course, as I think global warming would be a good thing, but alas I don't think it's happening!)
Complain about this comment
Now this is one of those obvious environmental things. It doesn't matter who or what catches these fish...the bottom line is they can't take as much harvesting (natural or otherwise) as they're subjected to so SOMETHING has to stop...and that something has to be mankind since that's all we have any real control over.
Unfortunately, the environmental groups have allowed no gray areas in their messages. All environmental concerns have been promoted as threats that must be dealt with immediately. They COULD have been complaining MOSTLY about the decline in fish populations, actual pollution and other more tangible concerns...but instead they latched on to CO2...something that is likely helping most ecosystems to cope with man's huge demands and which is produced to power things that make all our lives more enjoyable...not to mention longer and safer. Thanks guys.
Complain about this comment
To describe this as depressing is more than an understatement. It will now be at least several years before any ban can be in place, this means its probably already to late for the tuna. To me the UN has failed just one to many times in this area and seems like a completely pointless organization. In this the world is/has been forced again and again to these completely useless neutral positions. And its not just the tuna, the same is happening on things like climate change that are going the same way, then what about really difficult questions like population control? The only answer that most environmental groups seem to have is trying to teach the ignorant and stupid to be more intelligent and less self-serving, but unfortunately they don't seem to be listening and the window for such teaching is rapidly closing.
So what options does it leave anyone?, at the moment international law protects every pirate and thief on the ocean and that only leaves radical options. If we suspended international law we could use navel power to stop the tuna fleets, almost overnight. Maybe we would have a hope of solving some of the other problems to. Ugly but find me a better solution.
To me doing nothing really is the worst option. Many years ago I did a rough comparison between the environmental impact of a total nuclear war and continuing peace and generally the war option becomes the greener option within about 5 to 20 years. At the moment we're fiddling on the edges, the band keeps on playing as the Titanic sinks and most of us seem to be just to stupid and greedy and self-serving to care.
Complain about this comment
#10 Robert Lucien wrote:
"the band keeps on playing as the Titanic sinks and most of us seem to be just to stupid and greedy and self-serving to care."
It isn't "hypocrisy", and it isn't "stupidity" if it's irrational to do otherwise, and it isn't "greedy" if the people involved are simply trying to do the best they can for their families, as almost everyone does. It isn't even "not caring", because everyone cares less about the distant future than about the near future -- again, it is irrational not to give different weightings to the near and distant future.
You are closer to the truth with "self-serving", but it is "self-serving" in a trivial and unavoidable sense because no one ever acts otherwise. For example, the fishermen are "self-serving" in that they do what they themselves want, which is to provide for their families.
Most of that is just calling people names, without trying to understand the motivational "mechanics" of the situation.
If people want sustainable fishing, they had better convince the poiticians who represent them that they would support the use of force.
Complain about this comment
I'm with everyone else on the whole depressing thing, but poits, bowman and mango have a very valid set of points. As a movement, this was the sort of thing that we used to care about (and apparently still do, if we’re getting depressed about it) it was our "bread and butter" our "raison d'être". By concentrating on the just the single dodgy issue of AGW, ad nauseum, we’ve basically killed off the blue fin tuna.
Thanks for that Chaps and Chapesses, I hope that you’re very happy with yourselves - Pats on the back all round..........
Complain about this comment
this is a veritable tragedy.
note for accuracy, CITES is not, to my knowledge, anything to do with the UN but is an international agreement to which parties - nation states - sign up. what goes on behind the scenes is atrocious, with nation states coercing, bribing or otherwise ensuring that other nation states vote for their interests. there will be many a land locked country that doesn't consume bluefin tuna that will have voted ...
Complain about this comment
the point is that when the bluefin tuna are gone there will be no more to
argue about, so let japan and who ever eats them go without ,the world is
full of people, what do you do?we will live in another world in the future.
without a lot of species gone. I see where the Japanese are trying to breed bluefin on a fish farm.
Complain about this comment
Hate to tell you #11 bowmanthebard but 'Greedy' is exactly the word that should be used. These are not small subsistence boats but huge commercial ships out to catch every fish they can, and those tuna are selling for thousands of dollars per fish, its the lucre thats driving the whole thing so hard.
Sorry CITES isn't part of the UN but the these big international organizations are all pretty similar. They all depend on the votes of blocks of countries. As everyone probably knows this kind of democracy so often falls to the lowest common denominator - things like greed and short-termism always tend to win.
Complain about this comment
If people focused their energy on the real issue for this planet - the fact we are breeding like rabbits, we could halt the rise of pollution, over fishing etc that goes with it. Focussing on a single issue (is it C02...isn't it) for example, is self-defeating.
Whatever your side of the fence on a single debate, everyone can see the resources will run out as people keep insisting that it is their right to have more than 2 children.
A global limit to 2 and then sterilisation is the answer of course, but that would be seen as unacceptable, where as taxing us into oblivion over an unproven theory is totally acceptable and worth fighting for.
People will get what they deserve within 50 years, but it will not be from reaching a climate tipping point.
Complain about this comment
#15 Robert Lucien wrote:
"Hate to tell you #11 bowmanthebard but 'Greedy' is exactly the word that should be used. These are not small subsistence boats but huge commercial ships out to catch every fish they can"
No one trying to make money is trying to lose money. It makes no difference whether we are talking about rich fishermen, middle-class fishermen, or lovable nut-brown ethnic peasant fishermen -- none of them will choose to throw money away.
So the word 'greed' here is a petulant and impotent little stamp of the foot, which may say "I don't like it!" with greater emphasis, but does nothing to really address the problem.
Complain about this comment
This comment is awaiting moderation. Explain.
View these comments in RSS