US Tuna Fisherman Demand Economic Sanctions Against EUff
17 October 2002
USA Atlantic tuna fishermen want the Bush administration to threaten the European Union with tariffs on such imports as Volkswagens and Brie cheese for alleged violations of an international conservation treaty.
They hope the threat of $100 million in sanctions, which could hit any EU import, will force Europe to comply with the International Convention for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICATT), a commercial treaty involving 33 countries.
"What we really want is our fish," said James A. Donofrio, executive director of the Recreational Fishing Alliance, a group representing 19 million saltwater fishermen that has petitioned U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick for sanctions.
Fishermen, conservationists and others argue that the U.S. has suffered economic harm because of overfishing in violation of the treaty, especially by Spain and Portugal. The result is depleted populations of highly migratory fish like bluefin tuna that swim from one end of the Atlantic to the other.
Domestic commercial tuna fishermen have faced strict conservation limits - most boats are now restricted to one six-foot, one-inch tuna per day during fishing season. Meanwhile, European tuna fishing has gone virtually unchecked, said Rich Ruais, executive director of the Salem, N.H.-based East Coast Tuna Association.
The roughly 7,500 Atlantic bluefin tuna fishermen, based mostly in New England and the mid-Atlantic, have lost an estimated $500 million in landings since 1982, Ruais said.
For recreational fishermen, the concern is that their sport will suffer as populations decline of game fish like the white marlin. Events like the annual White Marlin Open in Ocean City, Md., where fish are mostly caught and released, draw hundreds of boats and tourism dollars.
The petition was brought under a 1974 trade act that allows interested parties to request an investigation of a practices that harm U.S. commerce. It gives the United States the authority to impose trade sanctions against foreign countries.
Specifically, the petition complains that the EU has failed to comply with catch limits, quotas and landing limits for white marlin, blue marlin and bluefin tuna, and with rules for protecting juvenile swordfish. It also claims that the EU has refused to accept scientific evidence that East Atlantic bluefin tuna are overexploited; and that it subsidizes its fishing industry in violation of a World Trade Organization agreement.
