Nearly 50 countries that trade in high-priced Eastern Atlantic Bluefin Tuna agreed Saturday to transform an archaic paper-based method for tracking fish into a digitalized system that officials say will make it harder for fleets to smuggle plundered bluefin into market.
Member countries of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), the body charged with protecting the bluefin stocks threatened by overfishing, will implement the new electronic system by the time ships set out in the spring of 2013.
Last year, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) exposed the paper-based Bluefin Catch Document scheme as so full of holes as to render it virtually useless. The system was riddled with inaccuracies and inconsistencies and did little to stop the thriving black market in bluefin. Before the ICIJ report, officials had lauded the system as a successful deterrent to illegal trade — a way to track every fish from hook, through fattening farms and to the final buyer.
OCCRP contributed to the series by looking at the Bluefin farming market in Croatia and overfishing in the Adriatic.
You can see the whole story here.