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Monday, February 8, 2010

We’re Running Out of Time



By Pontus Abelt

Each year we consume thousands of tons of wild tuna although we know that the stock is rapidly decreasing. For over five decades, the world’s leading fishing countries have been in denial, believing the world’s oceans impossible to drain. Thus, we have ignored the alarming reports and treated our oceans as a thriving food bank where everything is inexhaustible and exploitable. As a result of our hegemonic views of the earth’s most valuable resource, 75% of our ocean marine life is now on the verge of collapse.
However, the world’s legislators have finally recognized the issue and solutions are being discussed, where France takes the first step suggesting a ban on all trade of tuna. We’re running out of time, and decisions have to be made fast according to Dr. Sylvia Earle (2009) who argues that the wild bluefin tuna stock could be gone within the next five years. Both France and Italy are now willing to ban the trade of tuna, and instead focus on sustainable tuna fisheries along the Atlantic coast and Mediterranean Sea. Both countries are waiting for other EU nations to follow their initiative to stop fishing tuna to increase the wild bluefin tuna stock.




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