Tuna Relief

SEED Magazine is running a welcome news story on a Japanese/EU agreement to ease their collective appetite for tuna. This is a very important development. The Japanese have been a significant source of politicial pressure at ICCAT in the past. This cooperative atmosphere for marine conservation may herald a new era in fisheries management.

If you're interested in learning more about bluefin tuna (the most expensive fish in the world), there's addtional background information on the Gulf of Mexico spawning grounds for bluefin tuna from a DSN story posted October 2006.

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That is great news indeed. I recall the horror I felt upon leaving a plenary session at an ALSO annual meeting a few years back (http://www.aslo.org/) where gory details of the projected demise of tuna and other fisheries had been laid out. I was new to oceanography and the lecture had been enlightening. It didn't seem like things could be any worse, but it became immediately apparent that I was wrong...everyone in my group had a hankering for sushi and couldn't wait to belly up to the bar and make sure those projections came true sooner rather than later. When those in the know can't put aside their desires for the good of the deep, how can we expect the public to do the same? Here's to the success of the Japanese/EU agreement.