Marine environmentalists have reacted with concern at news the UK will allow commercial fishing of bluefin tuna for the first time in 60 years.

The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) have announced that 10 licences would be issued for a small-scale trial of commercial fishing, with the tuna brought ashore for consumption, with data from the operation used to inform future decisions.

It also extended a programme that began in 2021 to allow recreational catch-and-release fishing in which the tuna are tagged for monitoring purposes.

Ministers portrayed the move as a sustainable economic boon to coastal communities and a Brexit benefit, with Mark Spencer, the fishing minister, saying it would “help deliver [sustainable management] while providing economic and social benefits to communities around our coast”.

Charles Clover, co-founder of the Blue Marine Foundation, “This is a magnificent fish that has been fished to a fraction of its former spawning population. The anxiety now is that we are just starting off a cycle of commercial fishing far too early in its recovery which we cannot control. We are creating a new commercial interest in fishing bluefin which will need close scrutiny. Realistically, the survival of the bluefin now will be about setting quotas strictly within scientific advice.

“We should have an interest in making this work but our past record of fishing wild fish populations sustainably is poor so don’t be surprised if this doesn’t end well.”

Those fears were echoed by Nicola Cusack, fisheries policy manager at Marine Conservation Society. This could be a “really exciting opportunity” to build a successful and sustainable fishery from scratch, but ministers might be moving too quickly.

To read the full article in i click here.

For the Defra Policy Paper including criteria for licence authorisation click here.