VARIOUS: Japan's sushi lovers worried as the nation braces itself for more international tuna fish quotas.

It's not quite five in the morning, but the auction floor at Tokyo's fish market already hums with activity. Traders pace between rows of frozen tuna, examining them with flashlights and touching them with practised fingers. With a shout of "Good morning!" an auctioneer launches into a rapid chant, knees bending rhythmically and fist pumping the air, as men in front of him signal subtly with their fingers. In moments it is over and a huge tuna, over a metre (yard) long, is dragged away. By evening it will be on tables around the city, commanding top prices from eager diners. Tighter international fishing quotas, however, are now set to cut into the number of tuna that can be caught, biting into supplies of the fish nearest and dearest to Japanese hearts. To feed its tuna hunger, Japan ranges far and wide. Tuna lined up on the auction floor one recent morning came from Libya, Greece, Bali, Australia and New York as well as Japanese ports. So Japan was rocked last month by news that quotas for bluefin tuna -- a prized, high-end sushi ingredient -- will be cut by nearly eight percent next year. Japan eats more than half the world's bluefin, which in October sold for an average 3,145 yen (27 U.S. dollars) a kilo at Tsukiji market. The previous month, Japan's quota for southern bluefin was halved for the next five years as punishment for years of overfishing. Worse may lie ahead. Talks are being held in Samoa this week on conserving big-eyed and yellowfin tuna, which are often sold as sashimi in supermarkets, making them the tuna of choice for most consumers. However for Japanese tuna traders, these cuts in Japan's quotas are, while unfortunate, understandable due to the rising popularity of the Japanese dish overseas and Japan's previous overfishing. For wholesaler Keiichiro Watanabe, who runs a shop in the bustling centre of the fish market, Japan now has to take the rest of the world into account. "The world has woken to (the benefits of eating) fish. So we must now share with the rest of the world the fish that, frankly I have to admit, we had monopolised before and taken too much of. These are limited resources after all." However the conference in Samoa, which ends on Friday (December 15), may demand some steep cuts in Japan's share of the international tuna quotas. Some experts say the conference may want catch reductions of 25 percent for big-eyed tuna and 10 percent for yellowfin, a move that Japanese Fisheries officials oppose. Some international fisheries experts say that this is not enough. Most tuna species are fully exploited, overexploited, or depleted while the global catch tends to increase, according Jacek Majkowski with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Rome. Overfishing also means that the tuna being caught are smaller and younger, reducing the fat content for which sushi fans pay top money. The meat of famed tuna from Oma in northern Japan can go for up to 10,000 yen (85 U.S. dollars) a kilo, bringing the value of one fish haggled over on the auction floor as high as 2 million yen (17,000 U.S. dollars). Global health consciousness also means Japan faces rivalry for fish from nations such as the United States and China. Japanese media are especially concerned by the growing popularity of Japanese food in populous China, where a growing demand is likely to squeeze Japan's share of tuna fish stocks further in the future. Despite tuna's present popularity, Japanese have really only been eating the fish for the past 200 years or so, with the fattier meat gaining favour in the decades since World War Two. A recent media survey found that if prices rose, eight out of ten people may consider cutting back on tuna. "It will always be tuna fish for me. But perhaps I will have to consider eating it less regularly," said Takako Tomita, a 34 year old Tokyo resident waiting in line at a sushi shop before heading to work on Tuesday (December 12) . 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. 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. In 2005, about 150,000 tonnes of tuna was consumed by Japanese households.

ITN Source | December 15, 2006

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