Posted by admin in Endangered Animals, Green Articles, Green Products & Services, featured | 0 Comments
Blue fin tuna: No longer on a menu near you?
Warning: strip_tags() expects parameter 1 to be string, array given in /home/propelea/public_html/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 631
In the middle of the carnival experience that is New York’s Times Square, there is a lone, sophisticated eatery offering sushi – among other dishes – aptly named Blue Fin. Blue Fin is also the name of a chain of Japanese restaurants that slink around the city of Boston. There is a swanky Japanese restaurant named Blue Fin in Memphis, one in Seattle, and another in Orange County, California.
Across the country, blue fin tuna is known as a Japanese delicacy, and a good roll of blue fin sushi can sell for a gourmet price. The enthusiasm for the fine fish is not reserved for Americans, and a single blue fin can sell for more than $100,000. Japanese sushi makers and international fisherman are well aware of this fact.
What many people are less aware of is that blue fin are being overfished. A report from Scientific American says that in 2007 fleets from Spain, Italy, and France helped import more than 32,000 tons of blue fin into Japan alone.
Tom Strickland, the administration’s assistant interior secretary for fish, wildlife and parks, told Treehugger.com that at these rates, its only a matter of a couple of years before blue fin become extinct.
The most recent meeting of the UN International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora in Doha, Qatar takes up the cause of a tuna. Protections for marine life have only recently come up in the UN, which many conservation experts consider a sign of the growing awareness of the decimation of the seas.
The proposed ban on international trade in blue fin tuna would allow stocks of the fish to regenerate. Strickland told the New York Times that Washington intends to fight hard to win passage of the ban. The news source also reports that the European Union will support the ban if it makes an exemption for "artisanal" fisherman who supply just local markets.
The great holdout is Japan. Discover Magazine reports that Toykyo’s fisherman have been collecting signatures to oppose the ban for months, and the Japanese government is trying to convince developing nations to join them in opposition. Japan has even dispatched a delegation to Doha refusing compliance if the ban passes.
For a country whose livelihood is so closely linked to the fish, there is understandably a lot at stake for the Japanese. There will likely be some international division at the United Nations, and hopefully resolutions can be made that won’t let tuna stocks or Japan sink.
Related Posts
