Bloomberg News

Talk about timing. As American and European fisheries officials met this week in Brussels to talk about, among other things, the problem of illegal and unregulated fishing, Chinese boats were illegally in the Mediterranean, making a mockery of efforts to manage the bluefin tuna fishing season.

Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, and her counterpart, Maria Damanaki, the European fisheries commissioner, addressed the European Parliament in Brussels and released a joint statement affirming their commitment to combatting pirate fishing, rebuilding fisheries and promoting aquaculture.

But almost under their noses, according to the environmental group W.W.F., “two large non-Mediterranean fleets” — one Chinese and one of unknown origin — were spotted in some of the main Mediterranean bluefin tuna fishing grounds. Oliver Drewes, a spokesman for Ms. Damanaki, said that after being notified by nongovernmental organizations, officials notified the Spanish authorities. They pursued the boats, which are now thought to be in Mauritanian waters and beyond the European Union’s jurisdiction, he said.

The boats, which included 10 Chinese longliners, were “absolutely presumed to have been fishing illegally for bluefin,” Mr. Drewes said, adding that it was the first time Chinese vessels had been seen fishing illegally during the bluefin season.



Nonetheless, Mr. Drewes said the commission “does not have sufficient information to publicly accuse anyone.”

The issue of illegal fishing of the bluefin is a sensitive one. Japan, the largest consumer of the fish, helped to torpedo efforts to restrict international trade in the endangered fish at the 2010 meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or Cites, arguing that the proper forum for regulating it was the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, or Iccat.

But Iccat has presided over a catastrophic decline in the stock: its catch limits are regularly flouted, most notably by European fishermen.

Perhaps embarrassingly for the European Commission, Ms. Damanaki had just announced the closing of the bluefin season for Spanish and French purse seiners, ships that can hoover up an entire school of the fish. The commissioner said in a statement that the closing demonstrated the effectiveness of Iccat and European Union rules.

It’s easy to understand why the Mediterranean bluefin season attracts illegal fishermen; a single fish can be worth many thousands of dollars in the Japanese market, and there don’t seem to be many cases of anyone’s being punished for breaking the rules.

The use of illegal driftnets by Italian fishermen is a prime example of how the Europeans themselves are the biggest rule-breakers. Large driftnets are banned in many areas and on the high seas because of their tendency to indiscriminately kill marine creatures, including turtles and marine mammals. But they are still being used in the Mediterranean to catch bluefin tuna and swordfish.

Dr. Lubchenco’s visit came at an important time, with the European Union’s Common Fisheries Policy under review in the hope of creating a more sustainable management.

Last year Ms. Damanaki announced proposals for a major overhaul of the policy, including the creation of a market in private fishing rights, known as transferable concessions; a ban on wasteful discards; and the shifting of some regulatory authority to the national level. The European Union is also struggling to bring fisheries into compliance with its commitment to have them meet an optimal target known as “maximum sustainable yield” by 2015.

Dr. Lubchenco came partly to talk about her country’s experience: last month NOAA said that six American fish populations were “rebuilt to healthy levels” last year, raising the number that have recovered in the last 11 years to 27. That suggests that American waters are among the best managed, with 79 percent of the nation’s fish populations at or above maximum sustainable yield.

By contrast, about three-quarters of European stocks are overfished, according to Ms. Damanaki’s office, including 82 percent of Mediterranean stocks and 63 percent of Atlantic stocks.

In discussing progress, Dr. Lubchenco and Ms. Damanaki credited annual catch limits and accountability measures introduced under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.

“The E.U. is engaged in the development of a drastically reformed Common Fisheries Policy that draws upon similar tools,” they said, like following scientific advice for exploitation of resources, setting concrete deadlines for meeting the maximum sustainable yield of fisheries, and encouraging participatory regional decision-making.

Richard Black of the BBC noted that European fisheries ministers, always more in tune with fishermen than fish, are already beginning to back away from the reform proposals. The Irish government has flatly said that transferable fishing concessions are off the table, and the French are said to be seeking allies to fudge the language on maximum sustainable yield.

Markus Knigge, a fisheries policy adviser to the Pew Environment Group, said that while final positions are not yet clear, it seems that some countries are hoping to draw out the negotiations on each fishery over many years.

“How many fish do we want to take out of the sea, how many to leave in the sea?” he said. “That should be the starting point for any discussion.”

Whether that discussion will be held remains to be seen. European fisheries ministers will meet on June 12, but the betting in Brussels is that they will decide, in the end, to do nothing.