EU warns failure to protect bluefin tuna could see extinction

(BRUSSELS) - The failure of the UN wildlife trade body CITES to protect Atlantic bluefin tuna, a sushi mainstay, puts the species at risk, the European Commission warned Thursday.

"We are disappointed with the outcome of the CITES meeting," the commission said after the talks in Doha rejected a European Union proposal to list the fish as a species threatened with extinction and subject to a trade ban.

"We remain convinced that stringent measures are needed to ensure the recovery of Atlantic bluefin tuna," said the EU's Environmental Commissioner Janez Potoznik in a statement.

"If action is not taken, there is a very serious danger that the bluefin will no longer exist," he added.

The proposal was rejected amid strong opposition from Japan and others.

Europe remained committed to safeguarding the dwindling bluefin tuna stocks, Potoznik stressed.

It looked to the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) -- an inter-governmental body -- "to take its responsibility to ensure that stocks are managed in a sustainable way," he said.

Industrial-scale harvesting on the high-seas has caused bluefin stocks to plummet by up to 80 percent in the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic, the two regions which would have been affected by the ban.