Japan Atlantic Tuna Quota Slashed by Nearly a Quarter
Date: 01-Feb-07
Country: JAPAN
Author: Elaine Lies
Environmentalists and scientists say populations of important commercial species such as bluefin tuna are critically depleted, endangering some stocks of the fish, a popular food in Japan, the world's largest fish consumer.
Japan's insatiable appetite for tuna has been a key factor behind the threat to stocks around the world, and increasing demand from other nations is now adding to that pressure.
A meeting in Tokyo of a group managing Atlantic tuna decided to cut Japan's quota for Atlantic bluefin by roughly 23 percent from its 2006 level of 2,830 tonnes to 2,175 tonnes in 2010.
The overall take of tuna in the region, which includes the Mediterranean and ranges deep into the Atlantic, will be cut to 25,500 tonnes from 32,000 tonnes in 2006, a drop of some 20 percent. The decision was criticised as too soft by scientists and environmentalists, who had demanded much steeper cuts.
Officials from Japan, which eats more than half of the world's bluefin catch, said they felt the cuts were inevitable to preserve fragile stocks, which environmental groups say have been massively overfished.
"We believe that this was unavoidable, and that we were not treated unfairly," Masanori Miyahara, a senior Fisheries Agency official, told a news conference.
"Since bluefin tuna is only one part of Japan's total tuna consumption, the overall impact on consumers is likely to be minimal. But there will definitely be an impact on the higher end of the market," he added.
Further cuts could result if the stock doesn't show signs of recovering over the next few years.
A meeting of the same management group in November cut global quotas for 2006 by 8 percent and agreed on the scale of the longer-term cuts, but didn't have enough time to rule on each nation's share.
Japan last week hosted a conference that brought together all five of the world's major tuna management groups and agreed that urgent measures had to be taken to restore critically depleted stocks of fish.
To satisfy its desire for tuna, Japan ranges far and wide. Tuna for sale in Tokyo's Tsukiji market come from Libya, Greece, Bali, Australia and New York as well as from Japanese ports.
Tuna prices have risen over the past few months, but the impact has been limited due to bluefin's status as one of the more expensive sushi and sashimi ingredients.
Experts have said they also want catch reductions of 25 percent for bigeye tuna and 10 percent for yellowfin in the western and central Pacific, but quotas are steady for now.
Both are relatively inexpensive fish that regularly appear on Japanese supermarket shelves, and price rises would have a major impact on ordinary households.
