A voluntary stop on the consumption of the critically endangered species, Bluefin Tuna, was asked for by Monaco, ahead of the CITES Summit taking up the issue of including Bluefin Tuna in the Appendix I of the international Convention today. Monaco was the country which actually pushed the issue to the agenda.

Patrick Van Kaveren, Permanent delegate for international environment and scientific organization who heads the Monaco delegation, specified on the sidelines of the CITES that Monaco has already announced a similar moratorium two years ago. Following this, an international hotel chain dropped bluefin tuna sushi from their menu across Europe, thus adhered to the suit.

In 1992, the evaluated biomass of bluefin tuna was 200,000. As per the latest studies, the stock has rapidly dropped to 60,000 tonnes.

Japan, where the fish is in high demand, feels that the international community needs to come out with a strong management of the fish stock rather a blanket ban on the fish. However, Kaveran feels that they have been waiting for this to happen from quite some time now. The ban was proposed in 1992 by the international community. However, nothing happened.

Eating sushi is included in the Mediterranean tradition and now the time has come to avoid eating the endangered tuna and include other tuna species in the menu. Kaveren explained that it is a communal responsibility and the highly consuming nations must enforce a voluntary suspension on the fishing.

Monaco is concentrating on the fields of Water, Climate Change and Biodiversity of Arctic, Africa and the Mediterranean region under The Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation. A vital role was played by the Foundation in including the ban issue on the agenda of CITES Doha meet.