Economic Concerns Trump Environmental Ones

Well what else is new!?

Japanese fish dealers were naturally happy about the rejection of an outright ban on tuna fishing at a U.N. meeting in Doha, Qatar, Thursday.

Of course they would.

After all they consume about 80% of the world's Atlantic Bluefin tuna catch.

It doesn't help that the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species or CITES members did not see the need to worry about dwindling world stocks.

Most fishing nations said that the fears of the stock's collapse were overstated. So what would make them believe? When there is no more tuna to catch? Would that be enough proof that the stock collapse was not overstated.

Kudos to the three nations - United States, Norway and Kenya - for supporting the ban outright. Boo to the European Union for asking a delay to look into the matter first. Why not ban it right now then look into the matter?

Of course the Japanese government see a ban as a drastic step and calls for the enforcement of catch quotas instead under the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas or ICCAT.

But then again it is an international body with no teeth - it repeatedly fails to enforce catch limits and when it does set quotas it's not really enough.

Will this put more media attention on the situation? Probably, but then again history has shown that focused attention usually last as long as the next crisis comes up then everything else is forgotten because there are still other fish in the sea.

Amusing that they relate the eating of cows to the rights to catch fish. Yes we eat other animals as well like swine, cattle and chicken but they have already been domesticated and can reproduce under those situations.

Unfortunately there has been limited success in domesticating fish.

As the Asahi Newspaper in Japan asks: "How will various countries cooperate to manage tuna resources? The immediate crisis has passed, but the biggest issue remains unresolved."

How indeed. Maybe when we do resolve the issue there would be no more tuna to benefit from it.