KOBE Meeting “Profoundly Important” For Future Of Global Tuna ff

The fishing industries and governments of some 80 countries and regions will gather this week in Kobe to look at ways to combat decreasing tuna stocks, which are increasingly falling prey to overfishing around the world.

Japan, the world’s largest tuna consumer, will host the first joint meeting of the five international tuna conservation bodies from Monday through Friday to discuss measures for sustainable use of tuna resources.

The participants are expected to adopt an action plan and recommendations to harmonize conservation and management measures for tuna stocks.

Environmental groups hope the participating governments will take immediate action to conserve tuna.

The joint meeting is “profoundly important,” said Alistair Graham, the World Wildlife Fund's adviser on high seas matters. “There is a great sense around the world that tuna fisheries have come to a crisis point. They cannot continue in the future in the same way as they have in the past.”

It has long been accepted that widespread illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing has put tuna stocks at a high risk of collapse. But experts say the conservation bodies, whose jurisdictions cover most of the world's oceans, have so far shared insufficient information.

At the center of the talks will be how to strengthen cooperation between the five bodies, known as regional fisheries management organizations, including sharing information on illegal fishing vessels.

They will also discuss excessive fishing vessels and the lack of proper enforcement to control their number - factors experts see as making it difficult to keep catches at appropriate levels.

Experts say the steps the five bodies have taken toward optimum utilization of tuna resources are out of sync.

One of the bodies, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, agreed last year to cut the 2007 fishing quota of the eastern Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean bluefin tuna, the most highly valued variety, to 29,500 tons. The level was 32,000 tons in 2006.

Bluefin tuna stocks have deteriorated most seriously in the Atlantic Ocean, according to ICCAT. The number of mature bluefin capable of spawning has decreased 90 percent in the western Atlantic since 1970.

Some other bodies have failed to accumulate sufficient data and have yet to set catch quotas.

The focus of the meeting will be how much the five bodies can seek common ground and harmonize their policies, industry officials said.

”Each country agrees that tuna is limited as a resource,” said Yuichiro Harada, managing director at the Organization for the Promotion of Responsible Tuna Fisheries, a multilateral fishing industry body based in Tokyo. “But the interests of each party have made resource management difficult.”

Harada said that that to make the meeting successful, the participants must set “common and specific” goals.

Steps to be taken by the five bodies could have a large impact on Japanese consumers and the country's fishing industry.

According to data compiled by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, global tuna catches stood at 2.07 million tons in 2004. By country, Japan topped the list at 251,000 tons, followed by Taiwan, Spain and Mexico.

Japan recently admitted to catching southern bluefin tuna beyond regulated quotas in 2005. Australia has argued that the extent of Japanese overfishing is much larger than Tokyo has admitted.

Southern bluefin tuna is highly coveted along with bluefin tuna by sushi and other Japanese restaurants.

Japan’s admission led the Commission for the Conservation of the Southern Bluefin Tuna to take punitive action at its annual meeting last October, forcing Japan to halve its annual catch quota of southern bluefin tuna to 3,000 tons between 2007 and 2011 from around 6,000 tons in 2006.

The damage caused by the quota reduction to the Japanese fishing industry is “tremendous,” said a trading house official who asked not to be named.

The three other management bodies participating in the meeting are the Western Central Pacific Ocean Fisheries Commission, the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission and the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission.

The five bodies encompass the U.S., the European Union and other industrialized countries as well as developing countries such as southern Pacific island states.

”The time is now ripe,” said Hiroaki Katsukura, president of Japanese fishing firm Katsukura Gyogyo Co.

”The five management committees have respectively continued their efforts and now are holding the first joint meeting,” said Katsukura, who will take part in the meeting as an observer. “That will help find out flaws in each of their resource management systems and establish a more sophisticated one.”