Over 200 Japanese fishing vessels will stop fishing for two months a year over the next two years in an attempt to slow down the overfishing of tuna by the Japanese Tuna Fishing fleet.
The BBC reports recently on Japanese attempts to tie this strategy in with other Asian tuna fishing nations, such as China and Taiwan, to increase its effectiveness.
The Independent quotes that Japan consumes about 90% of tuna caught in the Mediterranean. Japan’s sashimi markets are held to be responsible for the dwindling numbers of large tunas, including bigeye and bluefin, which fetch large sums on the sushi market. Bluefin tuna can be sold for up to $15 000 on these markets (roughly £8000 or R100 000).
The Mediterranean tuna fishing fleet is held to be at over 600 boats, an industry grown on subsidies by the EU, but which now the WWF says is too large to be sustainable.