WEBVTT

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[sil.]

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We look to people across the world on the edge
of globalization, but what changes our lives

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changes nature too. Globalizing
how we use nature’s resources

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is global co-operation, but as this story
shows that could be a long time coming,

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if it comes at all.

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Blue fin tuna,

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beautiful, sleek, and we
are loving it to death.

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As the world catches the taste
for Sushi, blue fin tuna

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is big business.

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One fish can sell for a $100,000
but some say Atlantic Blue Fin,

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the kind caught in the Mediterranean is on the
verge of collapse. The rules that protect them

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don’t work, and we found out why.

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Over investigation reveals a
$4 four billion black market

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and the world where sometimes
even the experts are all at sea.

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(inaudible) the BCDs of 2008 are completed
or not yet? We don’t Know. We don’t know.

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It is very simple if there are no
fish then there are no fisherman.

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Cheating was part of the game. This is not Japanese
responsibility, it is their responsibility.

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It’s just bloody mess

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[sil.]

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The black market in tuna

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has spanned the world, to find out
how it works we joined forces

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with the Washington based International Consortium
of Investigative Journalists, the ICIJ,

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our guide reporter Kate Willson.

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She’s traveled from office by the White House
to the tuna ranches of the Mediterranean.

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This is a tuna ranch ranches that
revolutionized the industry,

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they brought fabulous profits, you
know, they are controversial.

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I am part of a team of reporters in seven
different countries working for the ICIJ.

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I’ve spent most of the year
researching the blue fin tuna trade.

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Blue fin tuna sit near the top

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of the marine food chain, over
fishing has shrunk their numbers

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by around 75% if tuna stocks collapse

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it could affect the
entire marine eco-system.

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So this a new game eh… we are here to play
the game in, in a new way because otherwise…

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otherwise, we will have a
complete depletion of the stocks.

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At the heart of this dispute, the European Union
none the states include big fishing countries,

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like France, Italy, and Spain.
The EUs task is to prevent final

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and terminal collapse of blue fin stocks.

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The very first day when I took office,
I… I came upon \"Blue Fin Tuna\" issue.

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There was a danger of blue fin tuna in
the Mediterranean to get collapsed.

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In March this year, the EU called for a ban

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on international trade in blue fin tuna.
It was opposed

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by Japan and its allies.

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Since 1969, fishing and trade in blue
fin has been regulated by ICCAT,

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the International Commission for
Conservation of Atlantic Tunas.

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ICCAT observers, monitor every catch, the
data go to ICCAT’s headquarters in Madrid.

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Membership is made up of
countries trading blue fin tuna.

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They float(ph) on couches(ph).
We found that on ICCAT’s watch,

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tuna have been looted and the wide spread fraud in
developing Mediterranean fisheries, European governments,

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and dealers in Japan. I think
that you have to realize that

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within the \"blue fin tuna\"
all the country were lying.

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In 2008, ICCAT commission
did an independent review.

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ICCAT was failed by its member states,
whose management of the blue fin fisheries

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was widely seen as an
International disgrace.

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[sil.]

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ICCAT’s International panel of scientists
advices on sustainable fishing levels,

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for years there recommendations
have been ignored.

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It’s disappointing, if the country would have understood
that you would have implemented to run this level,

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and then, you have no reason for
collapsing within this population.

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But because it didn’t listen, and didn’t pay utter
attention, and didn’t implement or didn’t even control,

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and then, it… in… in 2006, we started
to speak about reason of collapse.

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That risk could’ve grown
along with the tuna ranches

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in the late ‘90s. Most tuna are
caught by purse seines vessels

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with their huge drawstring
nets, they can snare

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entire scores of blue fin.

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They are tugged sometimes over
hundreds of miles to be fattened up

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in huge cages out at sea.
These ranches can supply

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fresh blue fin all year round, instead of just
a few days a year, when fishing is allowed.

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There also made the trade
much harder to track.

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Did he… He didn’t mention
a monitory month ranch

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he was just talking about…
I’m with Marcos Garcia Rey

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our Spanish ICIJ investigator, we are on our
way to talk to an expert in tuna trade.

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I started as a tuna diver

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working at a ranch, I had my
captain ticket or so umm… I worked

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uh… as a tuna rancher
from a number of years.

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Roberto Meilgo consults for the fishing industry,
environmental groups, and for the ICIJ.

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He says stocks risk collapse not
just because quotas are too high but

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because of the legacy of years of cheating.

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As you see… Cheating was part of the game, and
a business, necessity in order to survive.

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For instance, you have you have 2,000 tons
and you have only declared 1,000 tons.

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So you are going to actually,
umm… fatten that fish,

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then you gonna kill it and cut
it then you going to gain

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between a 11 and 14%. You will say, well,
I found my first 50-60-70% whatever,

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so that’s a way of laundering,

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a part of those 1,000 you did not declare
and the rest goes to the black market.

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Other ways of cheating have involved

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hiding the true numbers of blue
fin transferred to ranch cages.

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Counting them involves the use of video cameras.
One form of blue fin fisherman told Kate

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what was common knowledge within the trade.

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It’s simple, the so wanted cheats always find a way,
they could film in and stop the camera to let’s say,

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20 tons of fish to pass through,
and then, restart the camera,

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so you see cheating is always easy.

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At the ICIJ, we’ve calculated

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that in a decade up to 2008,
one in three blue fin

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caught in the Mediterranean is caught
illegally that’s a haul worth of $4 billion.

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But in 2007, something happened in France

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that shocked everyone. I’m on my way to
the Port of Sète to talk to the fishermen

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who’s been supplying these ranches for years. France
is accounted for about a fifth of the world’s quota

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and is the only country that
has come clean about cheating.

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Ceased by what civil servants told
us was a crisis of conscience,

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France disclosed its true catch,
it’d fished twice its quota.

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Joseph Salou is a former fisheries ministry official who
for 15 years headed an influential Industry association.

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Today, he manages France’s
biggest tuna fishing company.

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Everybody knows that every country committed
fraud, unfortunately, France was the only country

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to say it openly and we are
also the only ones to pay.

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EU countries are jointly represented

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at ICCAT by the European commission,
the commission sanctioned France

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reducing its fishing quotas.
Do you think it’s fair

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that France has been made an example of?
What can I say,

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that’s the way things are.
Everyone agrees that

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blue fin tuna fishing must be
regulated and managed scientifically.

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[sil.]

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Amid political embarrassment, French
officials launched an investigation,

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six fishermen could face prosecution. To the
prosecutor, it has been an extraordinary insight

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into the tricks of the trade.

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There are different types of fraud if you like,
that one person was put under investigation

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who admitted that he didn’t write
the quantity actually fished.

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There are all the kinds of
frauds, some frauds declaration,

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for example, about catches about several hundred tons
of tuna because an individual has sold this quota

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to a Turkish group and collected
the money on a account in Spain,

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and to justify his false declaration
he wrote fake customs documents,

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so you see there are different types of
frauds of which the judges are seized

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and on which the tribunal
will eventually pronounce.

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Investigators a source told
us had requested permission

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to probe French ministry officials. They’d
allegedly adjusted the catch figures down

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before reporting to the European
Commission. But prosecutors limited the

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inquiry to the industry. The catch figures
were collated by the French government,

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how deeply was it involved.

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We spoke to a source within the
France’s ministry officials

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on condition of an enmity(ph). He’d worked on blue fin
management, he said that the ministry had a clear

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but tacit understanding to
downplay the catch figures.

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We can’t talk about complicity

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but rather mutual
understanding, there was a need

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to keep alive an important economic sector.

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Up until 2007, the test declarations were
made only at the end of the fishing season.

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This balance sheet was presented

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by the French authorities to the European Commission
in such a way that it would satisfy more or less

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the demands of the quota.
Did the ministry know that

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in 2003, 2004, 2005, that their…

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their vessels were over fishing this much?
Yes, their administration was aware.

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[music]

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4.4 million tons of fish and sea food

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are caught in European waters every year.

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In December 2007, the European Union’s
auditors published a damning report

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on its member states over fishing, including
blue fin. There was unreliable data,

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ineffective monitoring
and lacks enforcement.

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The Court of Auditors Report uh… was a
very good opportunity for us to change.

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I’m going to have the legislate…
the legislative proposal

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next spring and I’ll hope that we’ll
change the things from the next year.

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It wasn’t only France that was cheating. The
French ministry wouldn’t agree to an interview

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but said France now follows the rules.
The EU does send inspectors on boats.

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They run by the Community Fisheries
Control Agency, the CFCA.

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These companies that they make
international agreements,

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and of course, the fishing industry says, yeah,
but neighbors are fishing also a little more.

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And then, uh… everybody is
fishing a little bit more.

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Uh… well, if everybody is fishing a
little bit of more, it’s much more.

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In 2008, a year after France
admitted cheating on its quota,

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ICCAT introduced the BCD, the
\"Blue fin Catch Document.\"

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It was meant to be the ultimate
weapon against illegal fishing.

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Ivory, net load of tuna, now,
gets the unique BCD number.

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It’s an ID card, without it, Blue
fin cannot be legally traded.

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It’s a very precise document.

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I don’t know how anyone could
break the rules anymore.

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And now, we can follow the fish

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uh… from the moment that
it is caught in real time,

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to vessels, who are bringing it to the
farms. Uh… In the farms, we can control,

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and then, subsequently if it is exported
to Japan we can control it as well.

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But we found the very system
designed to save the Blue fin

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is flawed and incomplete.
The paper records,

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the BCDs have to be manually
typed into ICCAT’s database.

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For scientists and policy makers, the BCD is vital
for informed decisions on safe fishing levels.

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It’s kept secret, and its password
protected. But we’ve managed to gain access

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through an ICCAT member country.
When you look at the catch date,

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often times it’s in different formats.
So if you are trying to find

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what was caught on what day, there’s no way to do that
unless you go through manually clean office stuff.

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You can use this for really good things
but there’s so many holes in this data

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that it’s not much better than a pile of papers. You…
you’re looking at about 80% of all of that person catches

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or missing something it doesn’t have a
country, it doesn’t have any kind of

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import information, some
information that would let me know

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if this fish was legal.

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There are more than 60 ranches

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spread across the Mediterranean,
the ICIJ investigators

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have found instances where ranches apparently
harvested more fish than they required.

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You can see that there is a Spanish vessel

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that reported transferring 38 fish into a
ranch, and yet 1,736 were reported harvested.

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We see them as 20 different ranches,
fish uh… don’t reproduce in cages

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and so why you would normally
see fish get heavier,

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you wouldn’t see them increase in numbers.
I can’t say it’s cheating,

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all I can say that now we are talking about
twice as many uh… three times as many,

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ten times as many harvested as are being transferred
into cages. So you wouldn’t expect say these many

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and the fishermen are saying the same thing. There
is nothing given here that is complete so far,

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so it’s within the system
that has been brought

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is not really practical. The fish can
go from a small boat to a bigger boat,

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to a bigger boat to a farm, to a farm to another
farm and then exported tom total market

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but not exported as a given fish, it can be
exported processed, so you have to track

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and to know when you have a piece of store
arriving(ph) at the sushi total market

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that’s this part of the fish belong to the some
fish another part of this maybe on another market.

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Just for one fish, you see, just for one
fish it’s huge but when we have million fish

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or dozen or under the dozen fish
over the year. (inaudible).

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[music]

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Despite the challenges one
ranch has a solution.

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Group Balfego runs a
blue fin ranch in Spain.

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[music]

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From the moment it’s landed, every tuna is
tracked using a straight forward barcode system

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by (inaudible) any super market,
every fish and every part of it

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can now be followed through to market.

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Tracking systems need to
do what you see here,

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using barcodes and digital information. It
goes perfectly well in other industries

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and can work perfectly for fishing.
You cannot trace fish

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with hand written documents
and photocopies.

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Applied across the industry Balfego’s
approach could enable monitors

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to check the catch in real time.

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The data from the BCDs is vital
for making stock assessments.

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It’s collated by the ICCAT
secretariat which also coordinates

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the activators of the ICCAT
commission, later the member states

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For blue fin tuna, we
have some difficulties

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uh… for about more than 10 years now,
it is over fishing and we had some

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illegal fishing, and commission
has tried several times

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to deal with this and to tale
some uh… management measures.

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We analyzed the database, uh… for
2008 and 2009 and found that

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in nearly half of all of the cases they are
missing crucial information that would allow

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a person to verify to that,
that fish was legally caught.

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So was anybody analyzing the database?
Of course we have… we have… we… we… we

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database I think it’s been it, it has been a
light for the… for the… for the blue fin tuna

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for the stock assessment. Scientists
say that umm… they use this data

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to make recommendations on catch limits.
How can they do that

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if 2008 won’t be complete
for another two years?

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I have no… I have no… no… no
idea, it depends have they…

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they have not completed?

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(inaudible) the BCDs of 2008 are
completed or not yet? We don’t know

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We don’t know. So she… she knows… Absolutely, not complete… I have… I have
analyzed the data. But she know… You know, why are you asking if you know?

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I keep telling you that these BCDs we
just started because in the system

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is not as easy as you think because
it takes time to deal with all this.

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So we started this in
2008, and we are trying

00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:14.999
and we are explaining to contracting parties, the
difficulty we are facing using this document

00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:19.999
and we are having here people using these
for but… no, and we are having difficulties

00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:24.999
so it works for something we are improving

00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:29.999
but it’s… would still need… I told you it’s not
perfect yet but we still need to improve the system.

00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:34.999
And do you think you are uh…
You are making it electronic,

00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:39.999
I mean that know there was some discussion about it during
that. If the commission decides so, I have no problem.

00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:44.999
[sil.]

00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:49.999
Japan’s Tsukiji fish market, the biggest in the world,
where most of the Mediterranean tuna catch ends up,

00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:54.999
and where some

00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:59.999
see worrying signs. Ironically it’s
here that we might find a more

00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:04.999
accurate picture of what’s happening
under the waters of the Mediterranean.

00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:09.999
Mature blue fin are important for breeding,

00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:14.999
they can span up to 10 times more eggs
than the younger adults. Over the years,

00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:19.999
the size and weight of blue fin coming through
Tsukiji have been meticulously recorded.

00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:24.999
This is market data pertaining to,
uh… the, uh… fresh blue fin tuna

00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:29.999
auction market in Japan from 2002-2009,

00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:34.999
this clearly shows that something,
uh… very wrong is happening.

00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:39.999
The fresh is getting smaller and
smaller, and smaller meaning that the

00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:44.999
population, the core population
of spawners is reducing

00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:49.999
uh… rapidly that is a clear sign
that the stock is in bad shape.

00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:54.999
Trafficking in blue fin is a global market.

00:21:55.000 --> 00:21:59.999
In 2006, Japan and Australia
commissioned a confidential joint report

00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.999
to gauge the state of the
southern blue fin tuna,

00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:09.999
a sister species to the Atlantic blue fin.
We’ve obtained a copy.

00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:14.999
It describes the Japanese traders as playing
a central role the tuna black market,

00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:19.999
it lists wide spread over fishing
and laundering of tuna imports

00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:24.999
by labeling them as cheaper species.

00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:29.999
But today, the world’s biggest consumer
of blue fin may be part of the solution.

00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:34.999
Japan’s refused to accept thousands
of tons of Mediterranean blue fin

00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:39.999
from exporters who couldn’t satisfy
them that catch was legal.

00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:44.999
It is not Japanese responsibility it
is their responsibility to demonstrate

00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:49.999
legality of the product. So unless
they demonstrate we don’t import it,

00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:54.999
even two years ago, we made
it very clear to the people,

00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:59.999
and I… I… I… I’m pretty sure that
they know that what is requirement.

00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:04.999
But they failed then, they have
to accept the consequences.

00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:09.999
Migratory species are always hard to track.

00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:14.999
Blue fin fishermen insist current
fishing levels are sustainable.

00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:19.999
I’ve never seen so many tuna
as in uh… past two years.

00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:24.999
In 2009, we started fishing on June 2nd,

00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:29.999
by the 11th, we’d already fished our quota,
and we took only the fish we wanted.

00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:34.999
When we left, we had to close our
eyes, so as not to look at the fish

00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:39.999
we were leaving behind.

00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:44.999
What he told me has echoed with other fishermen and ranchers
I’d talked to but that’s only the part of the story.

00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:49.999
There are doubts over even the
most basic counting operations.

00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:54.999
In September this year, another internal
report, this time commissioned by ICCAT

00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:59.999
found its observers had \"… no reliable means
to accurately estimate the number and weight

00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:04.999
of tuna caught…\" Some didn’t
have snorkels or binoculars

00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:09.999
more need to stop the possible \"…
manipulation of the underwater footage…\"

00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:14.999
used for counting blue fin. On the
vital BCDs, the described cases

00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:19.999
where the ICCAT observers had been obliged
to sign catch documents they had no means

00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:24.999
of authenticating. Mr. Meski still
reckons there are grounds for optimism.

00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:29.999
The situation is not as bad as we thought

00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:34.999
and uh… there are some
possibilities if we adopt

00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:39.999
several management measure with precaution,

00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:44.999
we can have a better situation
and the stocks could be rebuilt.

00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:49.999
As Europe cleans up its
act ranching activities

00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:54.999
passing to less regulated waters
in North Africa and Turkey,

00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:59.999
the new challenge for the regulators.

00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.999
[sil.]

00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:09.999
This month all ICCAT member states meet in Paris
to consider the state of Atlantic blue fin tuna.

00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:14.999
There are scientists calculated 60% chance

00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:19.999
the stock can be stabilized
if fishing can be limited

00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:24.999
to between 0 and 1300 and a 1/2 thousand
tones but still they can’t be sure,

00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:29.999
they still don’t have reliable figures.

00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:34.999
So the authorities willing
to know where we are today

00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:39.999
that we are testing it’s what all the
bloody(ph) catch, just wanna to know

00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:44.999
what are the real catch. We
could’ve avoided this situation.

00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:49.999
It was so obvious that if we continued
exactly it was not sustainable.

00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:54.999
With years of fraud and cheating, a
management system that still doesn’t work.

00:25:55.000 --> 00:26:00.000
The truth is that the blue fin
tuna are still living on the edge.