Tuna conservation takes another hit

Tuna really can't seem to catch a break. Not only is it nigh impossible to convince people this alien-like creature should be saved, but people's voracious appetite for it in sushi and cans alike, make the task all the more unachievable.

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It's one thing tacking up posters of adorable baby pandas and sad-looking harper seals, but doing the same with a tuna just doesn't quite have the same effect. There's something about fish that makes it difficult for people to relate to them, and to be honest, I understand where they are coming from. And yet without them cute smiling dolphins will disappear, eddying sea turtles will vanish, and once its toll is taken out on the oceans it will reach to terrestrial habitats. If we're lucky only part of the ecosystem will collapse.

It is time for people to start viewing the planet as a whole, and not as individual parts. You can't have that precious little panda cub without saving the tuna as well. Everything is connected. As the Lion King so aptly put, "it's a circle of life".

Clearly this realization has yet to hit people- or perhaps more disturbingly, it has, but people simply don't care. Mere days ago the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) has implored a re-evaluation of Japan's high tariffs on Vietnamese imported tuna. Currently, the high tariffs are keeping the price of tuna artificially high in Japan, reducing the demand, if they are lowered this will result in a drastic rise in demand. Of course, the high tariffs might also just mean Japanese consumers are demanding more tuna caught on their turf, but nevertheless, it is unlikely a reduction, or complete removal, of the tariff won't result in an increase in demand. An increase in demand that depleted tuna stocks cannot handle.