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  Yahoo News 16 Oct 06
Japan tuna quota halved for the next five years
By Elaine Lies

Yahoo News 16 Oct 06
Japan's tuna quota slashed as punishment

TOKYO (AFP) - Japan has accepted a major slash in its international quota for prized southern bluefin tuna as punishment for overfishing, its Fisheries Agency said.

The cut in the quota marks a victory for environmentalists, who say that a worldwide fad in high-end Japanese sushi and sashimi dishes is dangerously straining the world's tuna stocks.

An international commission last week found Japan had exceeded its annual quota of 6,065 tons of southern bluefin tuna and slashed Japan's allotment to 3,000 tons a year for the five years from 2007.

A Fisheries Agency official said Japan accepted the decision. "The most critical issue that needs to be addressed is how to recover the stocks," said the official, who declined to be named. "Japan agreed to the reduction to help the effort to increase its resources."

As far as Japanese authorities realized, the country killed 1,800 tons of tuna beyond its quota in the business year to March 2006, the agency said.

But Farm Ministry official Shingo Kurohagi said earlier that the overkill was not intentional and instead a logistical problem. He said authorities had ordered each tuna to be tagged in the future, so Japan could keep better track of how many were killed.

The decision to slash Japan's quota was reached during a four-day meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna last week in Miyazaki on Japan's southern island of Kyushu, the agency said.

The commission -- which includes Australia, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and Taiwan -- agreed to slash the total catch of southern bluefin tuna by nearly 20 percent to 11,530 tons for 2007. The Worldwide Fund for Nature welcomed Japan's acceptance of the punishment.

"We welcome Japan's decision, which is in line with the commission's advice," said Arata Izawa, a marine program officer at Worldwide Fund for Nature Japan. "But our campaign was only half-achieved as other countries -- notably Australia -- did not show their commitment," Izawa said. "We will continue our campaign to urge all the countries to follow suit."

Australia will maintain its quota of 5,265 tons, while South Korea and Taiwan will see their quotas fall slightly to 1,000 tons.

The European Union also took part in last week's meeting. Environmental group Greenpeace has launched a drive since May to cut back on the catch of the Atlantic bluefin tuna, warning that the growing appetite for high-end Japanese sushi was pushing the fish to the brink of extinction.

"We have to point out that Japanese people as the biggest consumers of tuna are not aware as they should be about the serious situation," said Izawa, the environmentalist. "Their strong demand for tuna is in fact encouraging fishers to catch tuna all over the world. Japanese consumers are certainly responsible for the issue," he said.

Japan, the world's biggest fish consumer, has long incurred the wrath of environmentalists over its fishing practices, particularly over its insistence on catching whales which Western countries say are endangered.

Yahoo News 16 Oct 06
Japan tuna quota halved for the next five years
By Elaine Lies

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's annual fishing quota for southern bluefin tuna, a sought-after delicacy in the world's largest fish consumer, will be halved for the next five years due to Tokyo's overfishing, a government agency said on Monday.

A huge global appetite for fish, in which Japan's voracious demand plays a key role, has led to widespread overfishing and pushed many high-value species, including some species of bluefin tuna, close to the brink of extinction.

In 2005, Japan exceeded its 6,065 ton quota of southern bluefin tuna by 1,500 tons, which a Fisheries Agency official said had helped contribute to the decision that cut Tokyo's quota to 3,000 tons for five years from 2007.

"There is also a possibility that Japan may have overfished a bit in other years besides 2005 as well," the official added, citing surveys by fishing experts. "Therefore we had no choice but to accept the decision."

According to the United Nations, more than 70 percent of the world's commercially important fish stocks are either over-exploited, depleted, slowly recovering or close to the maximum sustainable level of exploitation.

Quotas for each season's southern bluefin tuna fishing are allotted by the Commission for Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna, which comprises Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan and South Korea.

A meeting of the group, which also included representatives from the European Union, ended in southwestern Japan on Friday with the decision to cut the overall seasonal quota for 2007 to 11,530 tons from 14,030 tons in 2006 out of concern about overfishing.

Australia's quota was unchanged at 5,265 tons while South Korea and Taiwan saw their quotas fall a bit to 1,000 tons.

The Fisheries Agency official blamed Japan's previous overfishing mainly on sloppy record-keeping, adding that fishing rules were toughened earlier this year to combat the practice.

Up until this year, Japanese ships sent in periodic reports on their catches to the Fisheries Agency, which declared the season over when the quota was met. Under the new rules, which took effect in April, each fishing company was allotted a specific quota and will be required to tag each fish showing when and where it was caught.

Ships are also permitted to unload their catch only at specific harbors, with violations punished by forbidding ships from leaving harbor, up to two years' prison and a fine.

It is still too early to say how much Japan has fished this year, the official said, adding that Japan voluntarily cut its quota from 6,065 tons to 4,500 tons to make up for 2005's overfishing.

The average price of a kilo of frozen southern bluefin at Tokyo's Tsukiji main wholesale fish market is 2,000 yen ($16.70), the fisheries agency said. In 2005, about 150,000 tons of tuna was consumed by Japanese households, but the official said it was hard to say if tighter quotas would have an impact on consumers.

"That's because most of the natural bluefin tuna taken by Japanese ships is so expensive that it's not the stuff you see in your local supermarket," he added.
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