Japan, Australia, NZ agree to increase tuna catch
Date: 19-Apr-01
Country: AUSTRALIA
Author: Michael Perry
Environmental group Greenpeace criticised the increased catch for what it said was a critically endangered fish, arguing Australia had caved in to Japanese pressure.
The agreement ends a dispute between the nations which saw Japanese tuna fishing boats banned from New Zealand and Australia after Japan exceeded its catch quota by 1,500 tonnes in 1999.
Japan argued its 1999 experimental fishing programme, which saw it exceed its quota by 30 percent, was necessary because southern bluefin tuna stocks had been underestimated.
Southern bluefin tuna is sold in Japan for sashimi and can fetch A$100,000 (US$50,000) a fish.
New Zealand has already lifted its ban on Japanese boats and Australia said yesterday it now expected Japan would seek a lifting of its ban once the research programme was in place.
"There will be a joint scientific programme for which an additional catch of up to 1,500 tonnes has been approved," Australian Fisheries Minister Wilson Tuckey told Reuters.
"The fish will be caught and tagged and returned to the ocean. There will be a mortality rate and those fish killed will be sold in the normal process. We expect the figure to be closer to 500 tonnes," said Tuckey after the first day of a Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna meeting in Sydney.
The commission, which includes Australia, the world's biggest southern bluefin tuna fishing nation, the world's top consumer Japan, and New Zealand, was set up in 1994 to manage catches in a manner which does not deplete the stocks of the migratory tuna.
The current official quota of 11,750 tonnes of southern bluefin tuna is split between Australia (5,265 tonnes), Japan (6,065 tonnes) and New Zealand (420 tonnes).
GREENPEACE CONDEMNS RESEARCH FISHING
Australia took Japan to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea over its 1999 catch. The U.N. court ruled against Japan and ordered it to abide by its tuna quota.
Greenpeace said Australia's support for the research programme would undermine its opposition to Japanese scientific whaling.
"An experimental fishing programme is unnecessary pseudo-science and just an excuse to catch more of this endangered fish," said Greenpeace's Desley Mather.
"This is a collapsed fishery. This fish is being caught faster than it can reproduce," said Mather, as some 21 Greenpeace activists staged a silent protest at the commission meeting.
The species is caught in New Zealand waters off the west coast of the South Island, off southern Australia, the Indian Ocean and off the southern coast of South Africa.
Australia has limited its catch to 5,265 tonnes since 1998/90, arguing it was necessary to sustain stocks because other non-commission nations such as South Korea and Taiwan have increased their hauls of tuna.
South Korea yesterday signalled its intention to join the commission, but Taiwan said there were still issues to be settled before it could join. Both South Korea and Taiwan are attending the four-day meeting as observers.
Australian delegates said if Korea or Taiwan joined the commission then the official quota should increase to include their present unofficial catch.