Hiroshi Hiyama, Yahoo News 27 Mar 08;
"But in the end, everyone knew that to conserve the fish we can't continue fishing like we're doing now,"
Tuna eating and catching nations agreed Thursday to review rules to fight chronic overfishing, paving the way for stricter catch quotas later this year, Japanese officials said.
Officials, scientists and fisheries industry people from 13 nations held two days of talks in Tokyo amid concern that the growing popularity for Japanese food around the world is endangering tuna populations.
"There was opposition to the idea that the rules might be tightened, particularly from fisheries operators in the Mediterranean, who said the regulations are pretty tight as they are," said a Japanese official who attended the closed-door talks.
"But in the end, everyone knew that to conserve the fish we can't continue fishing like we're doing now," he said.
A 2006 deal agreed to cut the annual catch of bluefin tuna in the eastern Atlantic Ocean by one-fifth to 25,500 tonnes by 2010.
A report issued in France last year said that France, Italy, Japan and Spain were the biggest violators of international quotas for bluefin tuna.
Fishing operators also have violated rules not to go tuna fishing during the breeding season and to avoid catching small fish.
Experts have repeatedly warned that that tuna will eventually become extinct at current fishing rates. The United States has in the past suggested a complete temporary ban on tuna fishing to ensure the fish survives.
"Japan's position is that we do not want to encourage overfishing and we would accept stricter fishing quotas based on scientific evidence," the official said.
The Tokyo meeting informally brought together members of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas.
The commission is preparing to issue the latest data on tuna population and catch in June, in a report that is likely to suggest urgent need for controlling tuna fishing, the Japanese official said.
Some participants at the meeting warned that the commission's authority to control tuna fishing might be taken away by other conservation bodies if the quotas go ignored and tuna populations continue to shrink.
"It is difficult to speculate how strict the reviewed quota will be. But it is hard to imagine the new data indicating optimistic prospects for the tuna population," the official said.
The commission will hold a meeting in the latter half of the year based on the report to be issued in June, aiming to put forward a plan to increase tuna populations, the official said.
Japan is by far the biggest consumer of tuna, served raw in sashimi slices or with rice in sushi rolls.
But demand has been rising around the world as a growing number of people eat Japanese food, which is perceived as healthy.
Foreign fisheries operators say Japanese and other buyers are asking for a growing amount of tuna. Japanese businesses maintain they only buy fish that are legally caught.
