The unrest in the Middle East could provide an unexpected shield for endangered stocks of bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) around the Libyan coast.

From 2002, fishing operations off Libya have been highly lucrative. Vessels often catch tuna worth €500,000 (about US$712,000) in a single haul. The Libyan government banned foreign tuna fishing in its exclusive economic zone from 2004. But the French tuna-fishing fleet negotiated Libyan licences for some of its vessels, and immediately resumed fishing for Mediterranean bluefins.

Then came the Libyan revolution and the military intervention by France and its allies. The French tuna-fishing fleet is likely to lose its access to Libyan waters for the foreseeable future. This is good news for tuna. Like North Atlantic fish stocks during the First and Second World Wars, Mediterranean bluefins are likely to escape trawlers as long as military operations are under way. Such a fishing curfew could be more effective than decades of recommendations by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas. A similar situation effectively stopped tuna fishing in the western Indian Ocean from 2007 — as a result of Somalian piracy.