Japan Should Be Leading Way In Tuna Conservationff

Written by Yoshikuni Sugiyama

Can Japanese, who have a great love for tuna, continue to enjoy tuna delicacies for years to come?

A joint meeting held in Kobe by five international tuna conservation bodies last week drew a lot of attention - not only from people involved in the fisheries industry, but also ordinary citizens.

The five-day meeting resulted in a joint action plan being adopted Friday, as the five bodies pledged to join to combat the decline in tuna stocks due to overfishing.

Incorporated into the joint action plan was the introduction by all five bodies of tuna trade tracking programs by means of developing catch documentation linked with electronic tagging systems. The plan also included an accord to share lists that had previously been managed independently to distinguish illegal fishing vessels from properly registered ones.

The task of managing tuna resources has conventionally been separately handled by regional management organizations by dividing the world's fishing waters into five zones.

Only two of them - the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas and the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna--have worked out criteria for the allocation of tuna catch quotas for each member country and territory.

In addition, practices called “tuna laundering” have been rampant, making tuna caught in waters with strict conservation regulations appear as though they have been hauled in waters with lenient rules.

It has long been pointed out by experts that efforts to fight illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing by clamping down on illegal fishing vessels cannot be effective without the cooperation of the international tuna conservation bodies through the unification of regulatory arrangements.

The joint action plan, which is the first of its kind, is not deemed a binding international treaty.

At the meeting, Japan called for a curb on tuna fishing using round purse seine nets designed to catch schools of tuna all at once. The Japanese proposal, however, was rejected by other participants in the meeting, such as countries in the South Pacific region as well as the United States and European countries. The action plan therefore failed to include any specific measure for restricting the purse seine -round haul net - fishing.

As a result, environmental conservation groups such as the World Wildlife Fund were dissatisfied with the meeting and particularly disappointed in its failure to work out concrete measures to reduce the fishing capabilities of fishing countries and territories.

However, the meeting was successful in reaching the first agreement under which the participants pledged to redouble efforts to ensure the sustainable use of tuna resources by minimizing unregulated tuna fishing.

The Kobe meeting is highly significant as a forum in which an initial step was taken toward establishing a global tuna resources management system.

From now on, all five international tuna conservation bodies should boost surveillance to ensure that all countries and territories live up to the joint action plan.

Tuna have become important internationally, and their consumption has been rising worldwide.

According to a survey by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, the world’s haul of tuna (excluding skipjack) reached 2.06 million tons in 2004, about four times as large as annual catches in the late 1950s.

Japan accounts for about 30 percent of the global tuna haul, catching about 600,000 tons a year, which is mainly used for sashimi.

For many developing countries, tuna are a precious source of hard currency. At the Kobe meeting, a participant from Mauritius, an island republic in the Indian Ocean, said developing countries’ “legitimate right” to catch tuna should be paid due respect for helping their economic development.

Their opposition to placing restrictions on fishing capabilities stemmed from that point.

Every country in the world, for that matter, has attached high importance to fisheries resources to meet rising food demands.

China, facing the need to secure food supplies to meet a sharply rising demand because of economic growth, is keen to have Chinese fishing vessels operate in all parts of the world, sometimes causing friction with coastal countries.

Under such circumstances, it has been noted that the world’s fish resources would dwindle rapidly without measures to prevent overfishing.

The situation is worrisome to Japanese, too, as we have long been accustomed to eating fish.

All countries should create forums to discuss conservation measures for not only tuna and related fish, but also for other species of fish.

The Kobe meeting for the conservation of tuna resources was held at the initiative of Japan. It was the first time that representatives from as many as 54 countries and territories assembled to discuss what should be done to conserve fish resources.

The next joint meeting is scheduled for 2009, with the European Union expressing its intention to host the conference.

Japan, as one of the world's biggest consumers of fish, should play a further leading role in improving the management of fisheries resources.

Sugiyama is the economic news editor of The Yomiuri Shimbun.