Illegal Indonesia Fishing Hits Bluefin Tuna Stocks ff

The critically endangered southern bluefin tuna is being hit by escalating foreign over-fishing, the Federal Government and the fishing industry have warned.

Thousands of tons more than the permitted global catch of bluefin could be finding its way into fish markets, the Fisheries Minister, Ian Macdonald, said.

A rapid expansion by Indonesia into the fishery is alarming the Australian industry, whose spokesman, Brian Jeffriess, said larger “mother boats” were moving farther south into new waters.

One of the world’s highest-priced fish, bluefin is sold almost exclusively to Japan for sashimi. Its future is now on the table at the annual meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna, in Taiwan.

Despite pleas from environment groups to cut the allowable catch, Australia will argue for it to continue at current levels.

Scientific advice has been given to the Environment Minister, Ian Campbell that as little as 3 per cent of the bluefin’s breeding stock is left and even if global catches are reduced to zero, it may not recover.

But Mr Jeffriess, president of the Tuna Boat Owners Association, said surveys in the heart of the fish’s range, the Great Australian Bight, showed there had been improvements in the numbers and age groups of fish, and quotas should remain stable.

Last year the quotas amounted to 14,030 tons globally. Australia has an allocation of 5265 tons, which are netted, live in purse seines in the Bight for cage fattening to almost double the tonnage, valued at about $280 million.

Senator Macdonald said Australia would seek to tighten controls over catches at the meeting, and to build confidence in the system by gaining accurate information. “We are concerned about overfishing,” he told the Herald.

The Government wants to introduce measures such as a catch-to-market paper trail and vessel monitoring system, he said. It is also vital to involve more countries in the commission.

Mr. Jeffriess said illegal and unregulated fishing for bluefin by foreign fishers was potentially a very significant problem. “The fish is being exported to Japan through third countries, and it’s just got to be stopped.”

Indonesia was offered a quota of 800 tons for 2005 as a “co-operating non-member” of the commission, but Mr. Jeffriess said it had substantially increased its bluefin catch to take 1300 tons in the first half of the year.