Your story about poor management of bluefin tuna is a most depressing read (“Changing Tides,” November 21, 2009). Even though the bluefin has been in the hands of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) for some forty years, their numbers have declined by three-quarters over that period. Conservation groups and many scientists have been calling for a complete moratorium on bluefin fishing, but have been ignored by ICCAT. There is thus a growing demand that the management be transferred to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES), which has the power to ban trade in an endangered species such as the bluefin entirely. And so on, and so forth. Now think of Copenhagen. If we cannot properly manage a single endangered species, how can we possibly manage an endangered planet? Call me a pessimist, but I already know the answer to my rhetorical question.