Wednesday, 18th March 2009
Brussels Briefing, March 2009
GOODBYE TO TUNA
Tuna salads, tuna sandwiches, tinned tuna, tuna steaks, sushi, sashimi......it seems we just can't get enough tuna! Sadly, if we go on devouring these beautiful fish at the current rate, we will soon finish them off. The Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean used to teem with giant bluefin tuna. These majestic predators grow to 7 ft in length and can weigh up to 770 lbs. They are slow maturing and live up to 30 years. But man's insatiable appetite for the meaty tuna has led to their near extinction. A single bluefin tuna recently sold for over $100,000 in Tokyo, destined for the sushi market. The trade in bluefin tuna in the EU is worth over £150 million a year, with much of the catch going to Japan, and has led to a 90% drop in tuna stocks since the 1970s. Not only are these noble animals caught by nets and rods and lines, immature bluefin tuna are now routinely herded into large offshore cages and fattened until they are ready for slaughter, effectively ending their ability to breed and multiply. There are an estimated 40 tuna ranches of this kind scattered around the Mediterranean.
It is time for action. If we are to save bluefin tuna from extinction we need to act now. Every spring, vast shoals of bluefin tuna pass through the Straits of Gibraltar, from the Atlantic, where they spend the winter, heading for the warmer waters of the Mediterranean, where they spawn, each female laying millions of eggs. Hundreds of tuna vessels lie in wait. France has about 600 tuna boats engaged in this fishery, while Italy has over 200, half of which are unlicensed. Some of the Italian boats from Calabria and Sicily are believed to be controlled by the Mafia. But the French and Italians are not the only countries targeting tuna. Algeria, Croatia, Greece, Libya, Malta, Spain, Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey all have tuna fleets. Illegal spotter planes are used to chart the shoals and modern tuna boats speed to intercept the fish, using vast purse-seine nets to scoop up entire shoals, which are then killed or herded into fattening ranches.
The European Parliament has agreed to adopt an urgent recovery plan for bluefin tuna in the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean. Stocks of bluefin tuna are near collapse and the EU's Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) is partly to blame. The EU has repeatedly ignored scientific advice and bowed to pressure from the fishermen, setting quotas too high for the bluefin tuna stocks in the Mediterranean. At the same time, fishermen from southern European states have been fishing illegally well above their quotas. As the Mediterranean is the main spawning ground for Atlantic bluefin tuna, there has been a consequential alarming drop in bluefin tuna stocks off the Atlantic coast as well.
Environmental groups such as Greenpeace and WWF have been very critical of the CFP's failure to protect bluefin tuna stocks. WWF, for example, has called Italy's tuna industry "totally out of control" and launched a consumer boycott of Mediterranean bluefin tuna. We need a strictly enforced recovery plan for tuna including a reduction in the Total Allowable Catch (TAC), along with a substantial increase in the minimum landing size to 66 lbs in all waters, and extensions to the existing closed seasons. We must also ensure that all stages of the tuna fishery from capture to market must be documented and monitored with observers and CCTV on board tuna vessels. There must also be tighter sanctions against vessels and tuna ranches which do not comply with these rules, as well as prohibiting the marketing of and trade in all bluefin tuna and related products caught illegally.
Despite all the existing regulations on the protection of bluefin tuna, our continued inability to protect these fragile stocks demonstrates that the CFP lies at the heart of the problem. I strongly believe that we should start again, with an end to quotas, a ban on discards and a policy based strictly on a limit to the number of days fishing vessels can go to sea, with management entirely devolved from Brussels to the Regional Advisory Councils. Conservation and management of species risking extinction, together with enforced sanctions against illegal fishing should be high on our agenda or these magnificent fish, which were even celebrated in art and literature by the Greeks and Romans, will disappear from our seas forever.
SEEING IS BELIEVING IN TIBET
As the anniversary of last year’s Tibetan riots approaches, the Beijing authorities are determined to clamp down on all signs of protest. March 10th also marked the 50th anniversary of a revolt against Chinese rule which ended in failure and the retreat of the Dalai Lama to exile in India. Tensions in Tibet are running high. Although tourism is welcomed, tourists are carefully watched to ensure that no ‘FREE TIBET’ banners are suddenly unfurled. Photographs of the Dalai Lama are strictly forbidden. Large detachments of Chinese troops have been sent to Tibet to maintain order.
Many negative things have been said and written about Tibet since the so-called ‘Peaceful liberation’ of the country by Revolutionary Chinese troops in 1949-50. Exiled Tibetans and their allies claim that China has oppressed Tibet, destroyed the ancient Buddhist culture, committed acts of intolerable cruelty, including torture and execution of innocent civilians and allowed the country to wither economically. They claim the unique Tibetan environment has been degraded and abused. As is often the case in China, the truth is somewhat different. I have been to Tibet and spoken freely to many Tibetans and seen the true picture for myself.
Although Beijing has claimed sovereignty over this remote Himalayan region since the thirteenth century, Tibet became an ‘autonomous region’ of China in 1965, with the Chinese Communist Party taking the role of the highest political and administrative authority. In 1959, after a failed anti-Chinese uprising, the 14th Dalai Lama, or spiritual leader of Buddhist Tibetans, fled to India, where he continues to preside over a Government in Exile based in Dharamsala. In the 1960s and 1970s most of Tibet’s fabulous monasteries were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. The damage wrought across the whole of China at this time is now regarded as a nationwide catastrophe and blamed on the wife of Mao Tse Tung and the infamous ‘Gang of Four’, who were brought to justice for this global act of vandalism. Today the Chinese government has set about the task of re-building some of the more prestigious Tibetan monasteries, providing trained craftsmen, vast resources and even tonnes of gold to cover the looming Buddhist statues. 1700 temples and monasteries have been, or are in the course of being restored.
Now the 2.6 million Tibetan and 250,000 non-Tibetan population of this vast Himalayan enclave have their daily lives run by a local Communist Party Secretary and the Government of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). Drawn by the economic opportunities of the area, thousands of non-Tibetans, mostly Han Chinese, have come in recent years to work on development-related projects or in the service industries, often in higher-paying jobs. Far from swamping the indigenous culture, the streets of Lhasa are ablaze with typically Tibetan colour. Crimson-robed monks wander the busy lanes, their bare arms and shaven heads contrasting sharply with the richly-embroidered Tibetan women, whose jaunty sunhats protect their faces from the deceptively dangerous sunshine that beams down from an almost ozone-free sky. Everywhere is a scene of bustle and activity.
Tibet is Asia’s principal watershed and the source of its major rivers, which include the Brahmaputra, the Indus, The Salween, the Mekong, the Yangtse, the Yellow River and the Irrawaddy. It is reckoned that rivers originating in Tibet sustain the lives of 47% of the world’s population and 85% of Asia’s total population. Environmental issues are therefore not only of regional concern, they are of global significance. Far from over-exploiting their water resources, the Tibetan regional government is acutely aware of the dangers of global warming. With more than 20,000 square miles of ice, the phenomenon of melting glaciers is a major problem which the regional government is taking seriously. It has set up 46 monitoring stations to follow the progress of glacier melt.
The Free Tibet lobby has vociferously protested about the building of a new railway linking Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu to Lhasa. To them, this mammoth construction project represents the final rape of Tibet…the definitive destruction of Tibetan culture, opening the region to swarms of Han Chinese immigrants and armies of sweaty tourists. What these self-appointed critics fail to recall is that under the far from benign rule of the old theocratic regime that ran Tibet prior to the 1950s, there was no attempt made to modernise the country. Grinding poverty was widespread. Healthcare and education for the poor was non-existent. Virtually the only way to avoid starvation was to join a monastery and become a monk. The death rate amongst babies in the 1950s was 43% per 100,000 population. Today it is 0.3%.
Now, the colossal new railway station in Lhasa, designed in colour and style to mirror the Potala Palace, is a symbol of the expanding Tibetan economy. In due course 8000 travellers a day will pass through its towering portals, boosting local business. Despite the global recession, Tibet’s GDP is still growing at around 6% per annum.
In Beijing, senior Government Ministers and Communist Party chiefs acknowledge that Tibet remains a controversial issue. They say secession is not an option. They intend to pursue their ‘One China’ policy with determination and when asked why they still refuse to allow the Dalai Lama to return from exile despite his repeated assurances that he would accept Tibetan autonomy under a ‘One China’ system, they say that they simply don’t believe him. So as the permafrost begins to melt in Tibet, there is little sign of a thaw in Beijing’s glacial approach to the 14th Dalai Lama. In due course he will die, they reason and then they hope their foremost critic will be silenced once and for all and Tibet will take its rightful place as one of China’s most successful and prosperous autonomous regions.
As we approach the fiftieth anniversary of the failed 1959 uprising in Tibet, it might be worth remembering the words of Confucius (Chinese philosopher & reformer - 551 BC - 479 BC) who said “Everything has its beauty but not everyone sees it.” In Tibet, seeing is believing.
