Ocean environmentalists said Thursday they will continue to press for an international moratorium on trade in bluefin tuna, amid skepticism that meetings in Brazil next week can bring significant reductions to overfishing on the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin grounds.
In a telephone press conference, Matt Rand, who heads shark conservation efforts for the Pew Environment Group, said he’s actually optimistic that ICCAT will take action to protect some threatened shark species, particularly the bigeye thresher.
Still, "if there was a terrestial predator in this (depleted) shape — lions, tigers, jaguars — they would have been protected a long time ago," said Susan Lieberman, the Pew group’s director of international policy.
Lieberman said a ban on international bluefin tuna sales, through the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, is the only way to short-circuit illegal fishing and lack of quota enforcement that is clearing bluefin from some corners of the ocean.