Bluefin Tuna: Most Endangered Species Due to Severe Overfishing

According to an article today in The New York Times, Japan plans to ignore any ban on Bluefin Tuna.  The article stated that Japan will not join in any agreement to ban international trade in Atlantic bluefin tuna under the United Nations treaty on endangered species, the country’s top fisheries negotiator said.

Next month at a CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, also known as the Washington Convention) meeting in Doha, Qatar, a formal proposal for the Bluefin Tuna ban is scheduled which requires the approval of two-thirds of its 175 member countries.

The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) affirmed in October 2009 that Atlantic bluefin tuna stocks are declining dramatically, by 72% in the Eastern Atlantic, and by 82% in the Western Atlantic.