As Peter Singer and Jim Mason noted in their 2006 book The Ethics of What We Eat, even conscientious omnivores can find it difficult to concern themselves with animals who occupy remote underwater places and are, on the whole, decidedly not cute.
In the Australian context, fishing and aquaculture are the nation's fifth most valuable rural industry. The website for the Department for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry notes cautiously: 'The challenge is to develop the industry while ensuring the sustainability of Australia's marine ecosystem.'
There is a growing awareness that the scale of the global fishing industry is unsustainable. Fishing is second only to climate change as the greatest environmental threat to marine ecosystems.
The excesses of the fishing industry — a product of the focus on short-term financial gain over long-term sustainability — have dramatically depleted the ocean's supply of fish. Impacts on ordinary consumers, the global fishing industry and whole species of underwater creatures could be devastating.
One such species is the critically endangered southern bluefin tuna. A recent scientific report presented at last week's meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna in South Korea reveals that the tuna's spawning stock has shrunk dramatically. It is now a mere 5 per cent of its level in the 1940s.
There are currently moves in Europe to list the northern bluefin tuna as a critically endangered species so that its capture and export are banned entirely. Notably, the situation of the southern bluefin tuna is direr than that of its northern equivalent.
At last week's Commission meeting, the Australian Government's opening statement was stark: 'this is an unacceptable situation for any fishery from a biological and economic perspective'.
The Commission, which includes representatives from Australia, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, New Zealand and Indonesia, ruled that the 'catch' allocated to each nation be cut by 20 per cent — significantly less than the 50 per cent cut pushed by Australia.
Australia — which has the highest quota of tuna at 5265 tonnes per year — has elected to reduce its intake by 30 per cent. Southern bluefish tuna is Australia's largest fishing industry. The decision to reduce the quota has been greeted with outrage by some industry members. In particular, there is anger that Japan (which has the second highest quota of 3000 tonnes per year) will only