Tuna for sale at the Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo, Japan. An international conference voted to reduce Mediterranean bluefin tuna exports to Japan, in the hope of conserving this threatened species
Credit: Fisherman
SYDNEY: An international decision to slash the catch of Mediterranean tuna looks set to inflate sushi and sashimi prices in Japan, the world's biggest tuna consumer.
"This is an important start for conservation," said Katsuma Hanafusa, one of Japan's negotiators at a 42-nation meeting in Dubrovnik, Croatia.
Attendees at the meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas agreed on Sunday to cut the Mediterranean Sea tuna catch from 32,000 tonnes this year to 29,500 tonnes for 2007, and 25,500 tonnes in 2010.
Environmentalists have long warned that the lucrative Japanese market and a global fad for Japanese food were driving the fish toward extinction.
"The decision could cause about 2,000 to 3,000 tonnes of reduction in imports from the region," an official at Japan's Fisheries Agency said. "A reduction of 2,000 to 3,000 tonnes, out of 25,000 tonnes, is sure to affect the price of tunafish, even if not drastically."
Japan, which eats one-quarter of the world's tuna, has already accepted a major cut in its quota for Pacific southern bluefin tuna as punishment for overfishing.
The lower tuna catch in the Mediterranean - and its effects on Japanese dinner plates - was front-page news for newspapers in Japan, and some felt that the cuts did not go far enough.
"Concerns over the depletion of the resources remain unresolved," according to the Asahi Shimbun, an influential liberal daily. The paper reported that European pressure stopped the Croatia meeting from cutting the tuna catch further in line with scientists' recommendations. "The world is paying attention to Japan's moves in taking responsibility for conservation."
Japan's fishing industry has often clashed with environmentalists, who strongly oppose its annual killing of whales and dolphins for meat. But the Japanese government said it supported the conservation effort for Mediterranean tuna. "Slashing the global catch is inevitable," said Hanafusa.
The Japanese branch of the Worldwide Fund for Nature, a non-governmental group that promotes conservation, said that Japanese consumers also had to do their part.
"Japanese consumers must take action for preservation by not buying tuna which may have come through illegal fishing," said Arata Izawa, marine program officer of the Worldwide Fund Japan. "The Japanese, the largest tunafish consumer group in the world, now face questions about their consumption behaviour as it could lead to unsustainable use of marine resources."
Environmentalists estimate that Japan imports about 25,000 tonnes a year of Mediterranean bluefin tuna, much of it from "fish farms" that can skirt international quotas.
Environmentalists often criticise fish farming in the Mediterranean, as young tuna are taken out of the wild so they can be fattened up for consumers for the Japanese market, where tuna with fatty texture is highly prized.
But at Tsukiji, the world's largest fish market in the heart of Tokyo, dealers said they put a premium on tuna caught in the wild.
"Those who will be most affected will be supermarkets, which sell aquacultured (farmed) tunas," said Takuro Shiromizu, an official at Tsukiji market.
