Pressure Over World Stocks Leads Japan to Cut Bluefin Tuna Quota

Japan yesterday agreed to cut its quota of Atlantic bluefin tuna by almost a quarter over the next four years, in the latest attempt to save the fish from commercial extinction.

Environmental groups said Japan's huge appetite for the raw delicacy is largely to blame for numbers falling to dangerous levels, and warned that growing demand from other countries would increase the threat to world tuna stocks.

Japan has agreed to cut its quota by about 23% from 2006 levels to about 2,175 tonnes in 2010. The overall tuna catch in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean will fall by about a fifth from 32,000 tonnes to 25,500 tonnes under an agreement reached last autumn by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas.

Conservation groups claimed that the measures did not go far enough, but officials in Japan, which consumes more than half the global bluefin catch, said they would help maintain stocks while avoiding dramatic price rises.

"We believe that this was unavoidable, and that we were not treated unfairly," Masanori Miyahara, a fisheries agency official, said.

"Since bluefin tuna is only one part of Japan's total tuna consumption, the overall impact on consumers is likely to be minimal. But there will definitely be an impact on the higher end of the market."

Because bluefin tuna is served mainly as sushi and sashimi in expensive restaurants, so far only well-off diners have been affected by price rises.

Fisheries management groups have resisted calls for reductions in quotas for the less-expensive big eye and yellowfin tuna.

In October Japan agreed to slash its quota of southern bluefin tuna by almost half to 3,000 tonnes a year for five years from 2007.