Conflict Between Animal Rights And Good Ecologyff

Tuna, and how it should be fished in the Eastern Pacific, has become the subject of a battle for the mind of lawmakers and consumers in the United States and Europe.

On one side, fishermen, scientists and some greens support what they see as environmentally sound fishing. On the other, animal-rights activists accuse the fish group of promoting the death of dolphins. But just what constitutes “dolphin-safe” tuna? The answer is important for the future of the fishing industry in half-a-dozen Latin American countries.

In the Eastern Pacific -the fishing ground for tuna boats form Mexico, Central America, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela- yellowfin tuna, more valuable than their skipjack cousins, are often found swimming with schools of dolphins. Some fishermen therefore chase the dolphins, which swim on the surface, and cast their nets round them in order to catch the deeper-swimming tuna.

In the past, the dolphins died in droves. In the 1980’s Earth Island Institute (EII), an animal-rights group based in San Francisco, launched a campaign to stop the slaughter. Facing consumer boycotts, the three main tuna companies in the United States decided to stop buying from boats, which targeted dolphins. The “dolphin-safe” rule became federal law. The campaign then spread to Europe.

Earth Island Institute now has the industry in its grip. It has a list of producers and processors that meet its own definition of what is safe for dolphins. It also promotes alternative ways of fishing tuna, such as luring them with floating objects.

Over the past decade, however, fishermen have become much better at catching yellowfin without harming dolphins. Techniques and nets have been changed to allow the mammals to escape. In 1998, an international agreement –now endorsed by the United States, the European Union, Vanuatu and 13 Latin American countries- set rules to limit dolphin deaths to fewer than 5,000 a year, a number thought sustainable. Last year, out of an estimated population of more than 9m dolphins in Eastern Pacific, fewer than 1,600 died, compared with 133,000 in 1986.

In Earth Island’s view, however, no dolphin should die. It claims that some dolphin species are not recovering as fast as they should, and that the chase for tuna provokes indirect, uncounted deaths. The Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC), an intergovernmental body based in California which monitors the 1998 “dolphin-safe” agreement, retorts that scientists do not agree on how fast dolphins would reproduce if left undisturbed. It also points out that techniques used to catch skipjack, classified as “dolphin-safe” by Earth Island, involve a much higher unwanted by-catch of young tuna, sharks and turtles. Mario Aguilar, of Mexico’s National Commission of Fisheries, stresses that chasing dolphins is the greenest way to fish tuna. Greenpeace agrees, as does the World Wildlife Fund.

So pressure is building to review the dolphin-safe definition in the United States. But in 1999, a first attempt to ease the law was in turn challenged in court by EII. Last December, the United States’ National Marine Fisheries Services concluded that fishing tuna by targeting dolphins had little impact on dolphins. But the courts have yet to accept a change in the legal definition of “dolphin-safe”.

The dispute does much harm to fishermen. The American embargo on Mexican tuna was lifted a few years ago in 1999. But since American law prevents Mexican tuna from being labeled as “dolphin safe”, almost nobody in the United States will stock it. In the 1970s, Mexico sold most of its tuna catch to the United States. Today, about 80% of it is consumed at home. But other Latin American fishing countries have smaller domestic markets.

Demand for yellowfin tuna is rising in Europe. But selling there is difficult, says Jose Rodriguez Cruz of Grupomar, a Mexican fishing company, because of tariffs and quotas, and pressure on processors from Earth Island. Some European buyers, while ostensibly adhering to Earth Island rules, become less picky when tuna is scarce; the institute cannot check thoroughly. In a rare protest at this hypocrisy, Calvo, a big Spanish processor, decided last year to withdraw from Earth Island’s list and to follow the IATTC’s standards.

Even if the rules change, the three main American processors, who supply 90% of canned tuna in the United States, say they will not buy fish whose capture had anything to do with dolphins. The image of Flipper suffocating in a net is still too hard for some to stomach –even if “dolphin-safe” tuna   may be ecologically incorrect.

Source: The Economist, October 4th Issue