Proposed bluefin tuna ban rejected, crushed and thwarted

The UN wildlife body soundly cut down the proposed bluefin tuna ban after heavy lobbying by Japan and China

By Chris Anderson 19 March, 2010

Masanori Miyahara, head of Japan's delegation and the country's top fisheries is pretty happy with the bluefin tuna ban rejection

The proposal to ban trade in bluefin tuna has been rejected. The proposed cross-border commerce in Atlantic bluefin tuna ban was soundly beaten at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in Doha with the voting 68 against, 20 for, and 30 abstentions. Two-thirds was needed to win.

Slicing and dicing in preparation for New York's sushi restaurants.

Seen in the picture above is Patrick van Klaveren, head of the Monaco delegation, who appears pretty happy and friendly towards Masanori Miyahara of Japan.

While Klaveren may appear outwardly friendly towards Miyahara, he was quoted in the AFP article as saying Nature will smite those guilty bluefin fishing parties, "It will not be CITES that is the ruin of professional (fisheries), it will be nature that lays down the sanction, and it will be beyond appeal."

With a single bluefin tuna having been known to go for US$160,000 at auction, the result is hardly a surprise. Japanese fisheries are happy, while conservationists and environmentalists are down but not out. They surely will not give up the bluefin battle, but may turn attention to other causes for the time being.

The Channel News Asia AFP article stated, "The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) warned that another expensive delicacy, caviar, had pushed sturgeon into the most threatened creature on the planet."

So while PETA's ploy to have us all thinking of fish as cute little "sea kittens" may seem absurd, the act of eating bluefin could for some people continue to fuel a guilty conscious as long as it remains a legal dish (as opposed to some of the ones listed on this list.)

Main source: Channelnewsasia.com