MALTESE DELEGATION PARTICIPATES IN 26TH GENERAL FISHERIES COMMISSION FOR THE MEDITERRANEAN (GFCM) MEETING

Until two years ago these same longline fishermen used to carry on with their work with the minimum of hassle, but since the boom in tuna penning started in the Mediterranean, all longline fishermen who have been fishing in this area for a great number of years are having their livelihood threatened by the purse seiners, who every year are increasing their fishing activities in this part of the Mediterranean.

As the sale of ‘live’ tuna requires pens to transport them to their various destinations, the purse seiners, together with the numerous tug boats are creating havoc with the longlines, causing the fishermen big losses not only to their lines but also to a greatly reduced fishing effort, resulting in an even greater loss due to their smaller catch.

In the year 2002, the number of tuna pens in the Mediterranean will be greater in number than this year and the fishermen are anticipating an even bigger tuna war than we had in the past season due to the greater number of purse seiners fishing this area, which, for the first time this year, besides the usual Central Mediterranean Countries included also Adriatic and Western Mediterranean vessels and next year, we are informed, there will also be an additional country from the latter region as well. All this means that there will also be a big increase in cages towed by their respective tug boats continually plying the seas until they get them full with the Tuna they need.

Everybody knows that longlining is a more selective method of fishing with very little or no by-catches and exerts a very much lower fishing effort than purse seining. This makes longlining a more conservative method of fishing for Blue Fin Tuna which should be encouraged in lieu of purse seining, if the stocks of Mediterranean Blue Fin Tuna are to be kept sustainable in the future.

Apart from Maltese fishermen working this area with longlines there are also Italian, Tunisians and Japanese and to avoid an escalation of this year’s war, we suggest that a zone or zones are agreed to during this meeting, where Purse Seiners together with the towed cages are prohibited from entering and in default the country / co-operative / company / boats not keeping to this regulation will have a substantial percentage of their quota reduced and /or heavily fined or the boats’ fishing licence withheld.

We would like to remind this meeting that Malta has adhered to all recommendations which have been adopted by GFCM from ICCAT and we take advantage of the presence of the observer from ICCAT to consider the proposal being made by Malta.

Furthermore, the recommendation that no spotter planes should be used in the Mediterranean during the month of June is being blatantly ignored and we also recommend that the countries where the planes are registered and the countries which allow such planes to carry out these activities are also heavily fined. We hope that this should be a deterrent towards keeping with the recommendation.

Considering that the issue of over-exploitation of tuna stocks was raised at the Twenty-fourth Session of the Committee on Fisheries (COFI);

Considering that the COFI report indicated that some Members urged FAO to review and analyse the global status regarding tuna stocks and tuna fisheries, in particular purse seine and longline fisheries;

Considering that this over-exploitation should be addressed firstly at the regional level and that, in this regard, ICCAT was the competent regional organization for this exercise;

Recalling that a wide range of issues needed to be addressed in order to ensure the sustainability of the Blue Fin Tuna (Thunnus Thynnus) resources and tuna fisheries, including the issue of increased tuna penning/farming in the Mediterranean;

Requests that the Joint GFCM / ICCAT Working Group address the concerns expressed at the Twenty-sixth Session of the GFCM on the sustainability of the Blue Fin Tuna (Thunnus Thynnus) resources including developments in tuna penning/farming in the Mediterranean.