DECLINES IN FISH STOCKS WORLDWIDE_the ecology of exinction

How Japanese sushi offensive sank move to protect sharks and bluefin tuna

Aggressive lobbying operation borrowed tactics used at whaling negotiations

News that ban on trade of Atlantic bluefin tuna was voted down was welcomed in Japan, which consumes 80% of the global (catch Link to this video via site link)

To conservationists it was a gratuitous act of provocation; but to the Japanese officials whose embassy served bluefin tuna sushi to guests hours before last week's UN vote on a trade ban on the fish, it was a show of confidence that their diplomatic offensive had worked.

Confirmation duly came when delegates at the Washington Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or Cites, voted against the tuna trade ban in Qatar's capital, Doha.

Japan's aggressive lobbying operation in the days before the vote will be familiar to veterans of International Whaling Committee meetings, where poor island nations vote with Japan in return for investment in their fishing industries.

Now, with the dust still settling on a disappointing summit for conservationists, activists are concerned that trade and commercial considerations are overriding the need to conserve other threatened species.

"Japan clearly mobilised massive efforts to keep fisheries out of Cites," Mark W Roberts, the senior counsel and policy adviser for the Environmental Investigation Agency, told the Associated Press. Japanese officials flooded the conference floor, offering advice to supportive delegates.

Their endeavours, carried out with all the precision of a military operation, also brought defeats for proposals to regulate the coral trade and protect several species of shark targeted for their fins.

In another tactic copied from whaling negotiations, Japan was testing the diplomatic waters months before the UN meeting, gauging how many votes it would need to assure victory.

Last week, members of the 30-strong Japanese delegation were using their years of negotiating experience at conservation meetings to devastating effect. The EU, by contrast, was divided over its response, while the US dithered before finally voting for the bluefin ban.

But by then, Japan had built up a formidable coalition of 68 votes, while 20 voted in favour of the ban, with 30 abstaining.

The result has been greeted with relief among fish traders and sushi lovers in Japan, which imports 80% of the Atlantic bluefin catch.

"We were very pleased with the result, but that doesn't change the fact that criticism persists over the management of tuna stocks," a fisheries agency official, Kenji Kagawa, told the Guardian.

"It should never have been up to the Washington convention to determine policy. Protecting stocks and stamping out illegal fishing is the work of regional fisheries bodies," such as the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas.

While countries that voted against the ban, including Libya, Egypt and Zambia, denied they had been subjected to undue pressure, Japan conceded it had funds to offer to fishing industries in developing countries, and that some of that money had been used to send delegates to attend the Doha meeting.

The infamous sushi buffet, said Masanori Miyahara, chief counsellor at the fisheries agency, was nothing more than an innocent cultural event.

"We wanted to show what it is," he said of the servings of prime bluefin. "You can't buy votes by just serving bluefin tuna. That's a silly idea."

Later this year the UK's 8m cat owners will, for the first time, be able to feed their kitties their favourite fish with a clear conscience.

In a move announced today, Whiskas and Sheba pet foods are to become the first to sell products using Marine Stewardship Council-certified fish, which is caught sustainably and without threatening further dwindling stocks.

While eight out of 10 cats are likely to have no opinion on the provenance of their fish, Mark Johnson of manufacturer Mars Petcare said people were increasingly aware of the importance of sustainability.

"The End of the Line film [a documentary about overfishing] has had a big impact," said Johnson, the company's UK general manager. "We are now the first pet company to make a commitment to sustainable fish, and we hope that will act as a catalyst for the whole industry."

Supermarkets have been quick to respond to rising human demand for sustainable fish, with the Co-operative eliminating threatened species from its own-brand products and Marks & Spencer recently becoming the first high-street name to sign up to WWF's new seafood charter.

But pet lovers have so far been limited to giving their animals human food such as sustainably caught tinned tuna: an expensive way to limit their pets' ecological impact.

While cats and dogs may seem unlikely environmental villains, UK pet owners buy 1.5m tonnes of food a year and globally there are an estimated 750m pets who consume 20m tonnes annually.

The authors of a recent book, Time to Eat the Dog?, warned that the energy required to feed a cat is the same as that required to build and drive a Volkswagen Golf for 6,000 miles a year.

Robert Vale, one of the authors, has said that poultry and rabbits have a lower impact than red meat and fish when used as pet food. "When feeding a pet… the advice is to think feathers and long ears, not horns and fins," he said.

Under the Mars Petcare plan, MSC-certified fish will be available in Whiskas and Sheba brands to all European consumers by Christmas, with certification eventually coming to all the company's fish products in Europe. It pledged to source all its fish globally from sustainable sources by 2020.

The MSC badge is awarded through a voluntary process whereby fisheries approach the council to be assessed under 23 different criteria, followed by an annual audit.

The process can cost $150,000 (£100,000); Mars has said it will absorb the cost of buying the more expensive fish.

Conservation groups WWF and the Marine Conservation Society welcomed the news. Jason Clay of WWF US said: "There is no quick fix to this problem but when companies as influential as Mars take a leadership role, it is great news for the world's oceans."

If the Japanese have concluded as I have that preserving the bounty of the ocean is a lost cause, then their position is logical and reasonable.

into the hands of independent bodies with no particular axe to grind?

If the Japanese have concluded as I have that preserving the bounty of the ocean is a lost cause, then their position is logical and reasonable

yeh, lets despoil the entire planet even more. Thats the Christian imperative.

Anyone familiar with Japanese (& others) lobbying tactics at the IWC (International Whaling Commission) will not be remotely surprised.

Surely it's high time that such important decisions were taken out of the hands of such easily corruptible agencies & placed into the hands of independent bodies with no particular axe to grind?

Genocide in Iraq?

By DAVID MODEL

Despite the precipitous plunge in his popularity and growing criticism of his competency, character, and style, George W. Bush is not really that much different from other presidents with respect to his hegemonic ambitions or his proclivity to use force to achieve foreign policy objectives. Continuing historical patterns, President Bush and all presidents since World War II have committed horrendous crimes against humanity in order to protect and advance American interests under the guise of liberating people from under the jackboot of brutal dictators or communist subversives, bringing democracy to totalitarian states, improving the lives of those who are suffering and eradicating terrorism.

These are laudable goals reflecting prevailing shibboleths domestically. These goals are an alluring mantle for the real paradigm governing foreign policy which is the pursuit of American interests with total indifference to the consequences to people victimized by American “ideals”.

The gaping discrepancy between the stated goals of American foreign policy and its praxis is best exemplified by the apogee of war crimes: genocide. In its pursuit of these lofty goals, the United States has committed genocide in Iraq. Intervention resulting in genocide at the very minimum proves that American government’s professed motives for foreign policy decisions are altogether specious.

http://www.counterpunch.org/model05212008.html

FM wrote: in Post: # 3,950,232, [about the topic DECLINES IN FISH STOCKS WORLDWIDE_the ecology of exinction]

Youll have to explain to me what it is that you have in mind here. We in US look on sheep only as sources of wool lanolin, and meat, not as conjugal love partners like you Kiwis.

As George Castanza said,"not that theres anything wrong with that"

Why don't you start a thread called Outrage over the Coalition of the Suckups and their role in the genocide in Iraq or The USA buys votes from countries to cover its genocidal actions around the globe or Australia, Australia, why did you again align yourself with a terrorist nation, becoming one yourself??