Agencies Take Steps to Halt Tuna Decline

Organisations responsible for the world's fast-dwindling stock of tuna today adopted a plan to arrest the decline through a crackdown on illegal fishing and sharing information on fish numbers.

Representatives from the five major tuna fisheries management bodies, which together cover 77 countries and regions, hailed the agreement reached at a meeting in Kobe, Japan, as a significant advance.

"Maybe the steps we made this week seem small, but this is a big step, a historical step, I think," said the chair of the meeting, Masanori Miyahara, of Japan's Fisheries Agency.

However, conservationists - who have warned that Japan's appetite for sought-after Atlantic bluefin tuna is taking the fish towards commercial extinction - expressed disappointment.

"We do see this meeting as a failure," said Alistair Graham of WWF International.

The plan did not place sufficient controls on the industry or address the environmental damage caused by tuna fishing, he said.

Details of the final deal were not immediately released, but delegates said they included a call for closer communication between regulators, especially in sharing information on illegal fishing and the size of tuna stocks.

Another key issue is the problem of so-called tuna pirates, many of whom fly the flags of countries with weak regulations to escape proper regulation of their catch.

One plan discussed at the meeting was the electronic tagging of legally fished tuna, allowing legitimate supplies to be traced.

Conservationists have also called for regulators to decide how many fish can be caught, and then tailor the size of legitimate fleets to fit these limits.

Before the meeting, the WWF warned that Japan's demand for bluefin tuna for high-end sashimi and sushi meant stocks of the fish were severely depleted.

About 2m tonnes of tuna were caught worldwide in 2004 and 530,000 tonnes went to Japanese markets in 2005, according to Japan's Fisheries Agency. The country also consumes more than half of the world's catch of bluefin tuna.

Despite the agreement, the meeting in Kobe highlighted disagreements among some of the regulatory bodies.

Japan has campaigned for limits on the fishing of smaller tuna, but Europe has resisted this to protect its canned tuna industry. Larger countries want to limit fishing capacity, but poorer island nations want to expand their fleets.

Another key issue is increased monitoring of the regulatory bodies themselves, which have been criticised by conservationists for failing to stop the fall in tuna stocks. Some countries, such as the United States, Canada and Australia, are pushing for tougher oversight for regulators.