EDITORIAL: Atlantic tuna trade ban

The Atlantic bluefin tuna, which makes up half of the bluefin supply to Japan for high-grade sashimi and sushi, may stop coming.

To preserve the species, a proposal to ban international trade of Atlantic bluefin tuna will be tabled at the meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in Doha, Qatar, starting March 13.

If two-thirds of the voters support the proposal, then international trade of Atlantic bluefin tuna, including those from the Mediterranean, will be banned. The European Union and the United States support this proposal.

Japan consumes one-quarter of the world's tuna supply and 80 percent of the bluefin. If Atlantic bluefin trade is banned, then Japan will have to rely on the Pacific bluefin. Although Japan has nearly a year's worth of supply in stock, the effects of the ban would be enormous.

Resource conservation in those waters is supposed to be the purview of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT). There is some logic to the Japanese government's argument that it is inappropriate for CITES, whose mission is to preserve endangered wildlife, to be dealing with the Atlantic bluefin.

However, the ocean's resources of bluefin tuna are decreasing each year. In Europe, conscious of its trade with Japan, encircling-net fishing, which scoops up every living sea creature, is spreading. There is also no end in sight to overfishing and poaching.

In recent years, the business of catching parr, or juvenile fish, and fattening them up in fish pens has grown.

Until now, the ICCAT had tried to conserve the bluefin by setting fishing quotas and limiting the fishing season. But the effects have been limited.

It would be wrong to say the Japanese government has simply ignored all the criticism that Japan is depleting the bluefin population. Last November, Japan joined in the decision, along with the other fishing member states of the ICCAT, to reduce the fishing quotas by 40 percent.

But that reduction did not appease European environmentalists. Since then, the governments of both France and Italy switched to supporting the international trade ban.

Now that the situation has come to a head, it is more important for the Japanese government to demonstrate to the international community Tokyo's strong commitment to spearhead the movement of resources control and strengthen restrictions so that the ICCAT measures agreed upon last year can take effect.

To win over more countries, Japan should propose such tangible measures as a further cut in the fishing quota, more aggressive surveillance of poaching and illegal trade, and a reduction in encircling-net fishing in Europe.

The technology of full cultivation--farming the bluefin from their eggs to adult fish--is worth attention. Eight years ago, Kinki University became the first in the world to succeed in its cultivation experiments. This technology, which allows us not to rely on natural resources, should be put into practical use as soon as possible.

The Japanese government has expressed its intention to lodge "reservations," even if the trade ban proposal passes. That would allow Japanese ships to continue fishing.

But if that happens, international opinion against Japan will become even more critical.

To protect the tuna, simply paying attention to resources conservation will not suffice. We as consumers will have to learn to go without.

--The Asahi Shimbun, March 8