The American government announced this week that it will support prohibiting international trade of Atlantic bluefin tuna. In mid-March, representatives from 175 countries will gather in Doha, Qatar, to determine whether to restrict the trade of bluefin tuna,and an array of other imperiled species under CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

“The regulatory mechanisms that have been relied upon have failed to do the job,” said Strickland, who will lead the U.S. delegation to the CITES world conference March 13 to 25. “We are literally at a moment where if we don’t get this right, we could see this very, very special species really at risk for survival.” said Tom Strickland, the Interior Department’s assistant secretary for fish and wildlife and parks, in a recent interview.

In the last 50 years, the adult population of eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna has declined 74%, much of it in the past decade. In the western Atlantic, the population has dropped 82% in 40 years.

In an interview with the New York Times, Japan’s top fisheries negotiator said that the country will not stop fishing bluefin tuna even though the fish is under the United Nations treaty on endangered species.

“It’s a pity,” Masanori Miyahara said, “but it’s a matter of principle.”

Japan, which consumes about 80 percent of the bluefin tuna caught in the Mediterranean, “is very simple,” Mr. Miyahara said. He said Japan believed that a different organization, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, known as Iccat, should manage bluefin tuna catches and protection.

Miyahara went on to say that although Japan acknowledged that the bluefin tuna needed protection, the endangered-species convention was “quite inflexible.” 

“We don’t believe the bluefin tuna is endangered to that extent,” he said.

More bad news for sushi lovers, and more importantly, an entire species of fish. The World Wildlife Fund has released a disturbing report saying that unless current fishing practices are changed, tunas will be wiped out by 2012:

‘Bluefin tuna is collapsing as we speak and yet the fishery will kick off for business as usual,’ said Sergi Tudela, of World Wildlife Fund. ‘It is absurd and inexcusable to open a fishing season when stocks of the target species are collapsing.’

If the current quotas are allowed to be met, the breeding population of Atlantic bluefin tuna will have disappeared in 36 months. Demand from Japan, and other sushi loving nations, has seen the tuna fishing fleet steadily increase over the past ten years. In November, European Union members were among those who signed an agreement setting bluefin quotas. According to a number of environmental experts, the quotas were 47 per cent higher than recommended and were described as a complete disgrace.

The tuna population can only be salvaged by a total ceasing of fishing for them in May and June, when the fish swim to the Mediterranean to spawn, the World Wildlife Fund says. The call comes as the two month tuna fishing season begins.