Twenty years ago, Europe’s bluefin tuna stocks were in crisis. The booming global sushi and sashimi market had driven prices of this luxury delicacy to extraordinary heights. Industrial fishing fleets operated across the Mediterranean without effective oversight, de-facto ignoring sustainable limits.
"There were way too many boats catching way too much bluefin tuna," explains Tristan Rouyer, a fisheries ecologist at IFREMER. "Basically, there was no control. Illegal fishing occurred absolutely everywhere. Lots of small fish were caught, lots of big ones, without really knowing how many.”
Scientists raised the alarm about the species' rapid decline, while environmental act
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