First cap on Pacific saury catches expected to prevent overfishing

THE first-ever cap on saury catches in the North Pacific – 550,000 tonnes for next year – is expected to prevent overfishing of the popular fish, although continued bargaining to decide respective quotas for relevant parties has been postponed until next year at the earliest.

Setting the annual fishing ceiling for saury, known as sanma in Japan, was agreed upon in the meeting of the North Pacific Fisheries Commission (NPFC) held on July 16-18 in Tokyo. This organisation consists of Japan and seven other Pacific economies.

A Fisheries Agency official in charge stressed the significance of the agreement at a press conference held in the early hours of July 19, saying: “The saury migration to Japan has been decreasing due to aggravated

unregulated saury fishing. Now we’ve reached a starting point to address this situation.”

A focus at the meeting was China’s stance. Beijing had opposed limiting saury catches at NPFC meetings in the past two years, saying: “There is no data to verify saury resources.”

That situation started to change in April, when, at an international committee of scientists, participants for the first time reached a consensus on an assessment that saury resources in 2017 were at the lowest level in the past 40 years. This apparently discouraged China from insisting on its assertion.

“We had a solid foundation of debate this year. We were able to negotiate easily,” a source close to the matter said.

Saury is becoming a fishing target of countries across the world for its taste and nutrients. Last year, the EU said it wanted to join the NPFC, intending to get into saury fishing in the North Pacific.

A senior official at the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry said: “China probably determined it would be wise to make regulations in the Asian region before it’s too late.”

Saury migrate northward in the high seas of the Pacific, where all parties can fish, and then enter the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) in waters close to Japan.

In recent years, Japan has been suffering poor saury catches. The view has prevailed that fishing vessels from China and Taiwan catch saury in the high seas before they reach the Japanese EEZ.

It is said t hat in China and Taiwan, demand for saur y is rapidly increasing, part ly because people there are becoming more and more healt h-conscious.

This situation led to Japan feeling a sense of crisis and taking the initiative to launch the NPFC in 2015. Sources have pointed out that a fullscale recovery of saury fishing will not happen quickly.

The annual fishing cap of 550,000 tonnes consists of 330,000 tonnes from international waters and 220,000 tonnes total from the Japanese and Russian EEZs.

This cap is about 20 per cent more than Japan’s proposal of 450,000 tonnes, which is almost equivalent to the previous year’s catch records. This upper limit is apparently lax.

Yet, the 330,000-tonne quota for the high seas is less than the recorded catches of 350,000 tonnes there last year. The Fisheries Agency hopes to curb overfishing to some extent.

An official at the local fisheries cooperative in Nemuro, Hokkaido, welcomed the catch limit to be finally introduced, saying that this move “will prevent China and others from catching saury earlier than Japan and eventually protect resources for the future”.

Nemuro’s Hanasaki Port has the nation’s largest saury landings.

Nobuyuki Yagi, a fishing policy expert at the University of Tokyo, said: “From now on, it’s important to make a framework to faithfully observe the limit through such measures as intensifying the monitoring system.”

Many experts attribute the recent poor saury catches not only to overfishing but also to the decrease of migration to waters close to Japan caused by the rising water temperatures due to global warming.

Introducing the quota system may be a step forward from a mediumand long-term perspective of maintaining the saury resources, but it does not necessarily increase Japan’s saury catches soon.

To deal with the seriously poor catches, this year’s saury fishing has been allowed all year round, although it is typically permitted only from August to December.

Some fishing boats set out for operation as early as May, resulting in this year’s first catch being available in supermarkets much earlier than usual, although the saury were thinner and fewer.