The Definition of Human Selfishness

Representatives of the human race have voted and decided to liquidate another species in the name of Mammon and short-term economic gain.

Delegates from 175 countries, representing the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, voted on a series of measures to eliminate international trade on the Bluefin Tuna and a variety of other animals that are posed for extinction.  According to the Washington Post,

The adult population of eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna has declined 74 percent over the past half-century, much of it in the past decade, and the population has dropped 82 percent in 40 years in the western Atlantic.

The proposal originally initiated by Monaco and agreed upon by the USA and several EU states, failed to achieve a majority position at the Doha, Qatar conference; with 20 nations in favor, 68 against and 30 cowards abstaining. 

Japan the greatest consumer of worldwide Tuna, imports nearly 80 percent of commercially traded Atlantic bluefin.  Similar to its extensive campaign to dissuade any international body from preventing it from harvesting whales, Japan has used its considerable economic clout to prevent limitations on any trade embargo or harvesting constraints in international waters.  Few deny that the motivations behind their stance are purely commercial.  As Susan Lieberman, director of international policy at the Pew Environment Group said, "This was a case of just plain ignoring the science for short-term economic gain."

Japan is not alone in its posturing; however.  Canada, a country that has made itself into an environmental pariah by its fealty to dirty oil-sands production and the persistent refusal by its conservative government to acknowledge and address climate change, has actively sided with the Japanese on the tuna issue.  Canada's Minster of Fisheries, Gail Shea, applauding the defeat of the trade ban and touting Canada's own policies, which have permitted over the decades the devastation of Atlantic fisheries and the current collapse of Pacific Sockeye Salmon.  So when Canadians say they have a plan to manage fishery stocks, you can be certain that that species will be decimated.

To highlight the absurdity of the entire trade system, consider how Bluefin Tuna is cultured in Spanish waters; as relayed by the BBC.  The fish are initially kept alive in off-shore pens, where they are fed vast amounts of expensively caught fish (around 10-kg of feed fish serve to make the tuna put on 1-kg of body weight).  They are then harvested by hand using divers, packaged at a purpose-built factory, and flown -on the same day- to Asian markets.  All this so some silly twit can eat sushi with his/her choice of dipping sauce.

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Additional background stories and commentary on this subject can be found here, here, and here.