EDITORIAL: Protecting bluefin tuna

The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) started its annual meeting to discuss an overall fishing limit and country-based fishing quotas to save the Atlantic bluefin tuna, a species rapidly decreasing in numbers due to overfishing.

This year's ICCAT meeting is drawing more attention than before. This is because Monaco has called for a ban on international trade of Atlantic bluefin tuna based on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), also known as the Washington Convention.

While the estimated population of Pacific bluefin tuna has remained low but stable, the number of Atlantic bluefin tuna has dropped drastically to one-third of what it was 30 years ago. Especially in the eastern Atlantic, including the Mediterranean Sea, tuna farming, the method of fattening up small tuna in large cages, has become so widespread that fishermen are catching even young fish before they spawn.

The ICCAT Standing Committee on Research and Statistics recommended that the total annual catch be limited to 15,000 tons or less, citing concerns that the biomass will be unsustainable if the current situation continues. However, resistance from countries like Spain and France that have tuna fisheries has prevented the ICCAT from imposing restrictions in line with the recommendation.

Behind the move by Monaco is its frustration over the ICCAT's failure to implement effective measures to protect the Atlantic bluefin tuna. Monaco apparently thinks that it can no longer leave this matter solely in the hands of the ICCAT.

If the ICCAT meeting stirs even wider disappointment, then more countries would move to back Monaco's proposal. And if that leads to the adoption of Monaco's proposal at the 15th conference of the parties to the Washington Convention, scheduled in March, then cross-border trade of Atlantic bluefin tuna will be banned, just like the ban on trade of coelacanths, dugongs or sea turtles.

With only Pacific bluefin tuna coming to Japan, the supply of the premium tuna will be halved, creating an enormous impact on Japanese industries and eating habits.

The Japanese government opposes Monaco's proposal, arguing that it is better to try to replenish the biomass while controlling the amount of fishing.

If so, Japan must make tenacious efforts to persuade ICCAT members to agree on tougher fishing restrictions based on scientific grounds.

Of course, quota restrictions are not enough; expediting the creation of a framework to eliminate illegal tuna fishing is necessary.

There is no end to the fishing fleets that ignore their allotted quotas as well as poaching outside the ICCAT framework.

We need measures to control the ocean biomass and enable rigid import and export checks, including having supervisors aboard fishing vessels and demanding certificates for each tuna caught.

Recently, catching restrictions have been introduced to protect the supply of southern bluefin tuna, a high-grade fish, as well as the more reasonably priced big-eye tuna.

Although tuna is edible, it is also wildlife that needs to be protected. It is time we start to think this way.

Japan consumes 25 percent of all tuna caught worldwide, and 70 to 80 percent of all bluefin tuna. The nation is also the world leader in the amount of tuna caught.

As a big tuna-consuming country, we have a responsibility to lead the world toward sustainable tuna fishing.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Nov. 7(IHT/Asahi: November 10,2009)