ISARIBI NO.64

ISSN1346-2512

JapanFisheries
AssociationNO.64, NOV. 2009
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Views and Opinions of Japan’s Fisheries Industry

Japan Seafood Show

Visitors to the 11th Japan International Seafood Show
top 30,000

T

More environment-related businesses
showed interest in the Expohe Japan Fisheries Association organized the11th Japan International Seafood & Technology Expo at the Tokyo Big Sight on July 22-24.
The show, in which 400 companies both from Japanand overseas participated, attracted 31,165 visitors
during the three day session, topping 30,000 for theﬁrst time in the history of the expo, and largely surpassing the 26,882 visitors last year.
By day, the number of visitors was 9,820 on July22; 10,516 on July 23; and 10,829 on July 24.
In retrospect, the ﬁrst international show was heldin 1999, with 300 companies displaying their products and technologies. The target at that time was20,000 visitors.

This goal was achieved during the fourth expo in
2003. At the ﬁfth show in 2005, a total of 450 ﬁrms attended, with around 26,000 visitors.
Since then the target level of visitors was raised to30,000, but actual numbers stayed on the order of
20,000 for some years that ensued.
This year, the number of exhibitors decreased in thewake of the economic recession, while, by contrast, thenumber of visitors showed a drastic increase. Kazuo
Ide, president of Exhibition Technologies Inc., which
served as the Secretariat of the exposition, explained:"It seems that more people visited the show in the hopeof getting some hints in the midst of the present economic downturn where sales of seafood are slumping.
For instance, many inquiries came from high-ranking ofﬁcials of supermarkets and eat-out establishments. Also
there was a rising interest from environment-related
businesses in aquaculture and sea cleaning technology."
In addition, the exhibition of fishery aquaculture
technology was expanded this year. A total of about 20
exhibitors displayed their state-of-the-art technologies,
including the Fisheries Research Institute of Kinki University in Wakayama Prefecture, western Japan, which
was the forerunner in the development of full-cycle tuna
farming technology.
This time there were a number of exhibitions ofland-based aquaculture technology. They included theworld's ﬁrst indoor shrimp production system by meansof closed-cycle-type aquaculture by I.M.T. Co. from Tokyo; the Bio-Reactor System, a water processing plantby KM Environment Technical Laboratory Co. from Iwate
Prefecture, northern Japan; and a system to circulate
water inside aquaculture ponds as well as aquaculture
facilities using that technology by Aqua Tech Japan Co.
from Tokyo.
Reﬂecting the rising Japanese food boom overseas,
the Sushi Expo, which was held concurrently with theInternational Seafood Show, also attracted the attention of many visitors. The Sushi Expo, the third in anannual series, included a variety of merchandize related
to sushi, such as sushi robots, rice, vinegar, wasabi(Japanese horseradish), gari (slices of ginger pickled insweetened vinegar), and Japanese tea.

ISARIBI: First published by the Japan Fisheries Association in October 1992.
JFA President: Toshiro Shirasu; Editor: Masashi Nishimura

ISARIBI NO.64

NOV. 2009

JFA New President
Shirasu named new JFA headT

he Japan Fisheries Association (JFA) electedToshiro Shirasu as its
20th President at an Extraordinary General Meetingon September 1, following
the resignation of his predecessor Isao Nakasu.
Shirasu, born in Tokyo in
1951, graduated from theLaw Faculty of the University of Tokyo in 1974, and the same year joined theMinistry of Agriculture and Forestry (later to become
the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries).
In August 2006, he was appointed as Director-General of the Fisheries Agency and in September 2007
became Administrative Vice-Minister for Agriculture,Forestry and Fisheries. He retired from the Ministry in
September 2008. His favorite pastime is oil painting.

Seafood exports

be supplied stably. We hope to publicize the quality,
safety and tastiness of well-managed farmed yellowtail, presenting it in brief commercials in an easy-tounderstand way using images." The timing of broadcasting was set to coincide with the season when consumption becomes active both in North America andAsia.
In the TV program, the Ministry will deploy an overseas TV crew specializing in food culture, and send it
to producing places for ﬁlming.
In the United States, Japanese food will be presented in a public broadcasting service program titled"Culinary travels with Dave,” in which an actor travels
worldwide in search of tasty foods. Two broadcasts
will be made from November to March next year, withthe possibility of repeated airings. The TV team has
already visited Matsuyama and Uwajima in Ehime
Prefecture, western Japan. Products such as farmed
yellowtail and Japanese sake (rice wine) will be presented.
In Hong Kong, the program will be aired for fourweeks through I-Cable (CS Channel), in which scallops
and squid from Mutsu Bay and apples and other farm
products from Tsugaru, both of Aomori Prefecture,northern Japan, will be introduced.

Blueﬁn Tuna at CITESJapan set to promote exports ofseafood

The Atlantic blueﬁn tuna issue
should be resolved under ICCAT,
not CITES

TV commercials and programs will bepresented overseas

The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries will broadcast TV commercials and programs
to introduce Japanese seafood in North Americaand Asia. This will be carried out as part of the Ministry's project to introduce Japanese cuisine and foods
overseas and promote exports. TV commercials will
be aired for one month in December in the UnitedStates and Canada, and in January and February inEast Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania. A special TVprogram introducing Japan's cuisine is also expected
to be presented in November 2009-March 2010 in theUnited States, and in December in Hong Kong.
The project is designed to convey the attractiveness of Japanese food and food materials overseas, ina bid to promote exports of Japan's farm and ﬁsheryproducts by expanding the sphere of consumers fondof Japanese products.
Up to now, the Ministry has been circulating publicity materials on Japanese cuisine through the Japanese government's overseas ofﬁces. This will be thefirst attempt to publicize Japanese food materials
using overseas televised media. Besides seafood, theMinistry will produce commercials on Japanese fruit
mainly targeting Asian countries.
Commercials on seafood will be broadcast to ordinary families through CNN Headlines in North
America and CNN Asia in Asian countries. In theUnited States, broadcasting at major airports is alsoplanned.
The major focus of the seafood commercials will be
the introduction of farmed yellowtail. The Ministry is
now working on the details. A Ministry ofﬁcial said:"Aquaculture products are suited for export because
they have little impact on the environment and canOn October 14, Monaco formally presented its
proposal to include Atlantic blueﬁn tuna on Appendix I of the Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora(CITES) (Inclusion on Appendix I would mean a totalprohibition of trade). As a result, this issue will be aformal agenda item to be discussed at the CITES Conference of Parties to be held in Doha, Qatar, in Marchnext year.
In late July, Monaco circulated the draft proposal
among member countries, calling for support and encouraging other members to become co-sponsors ofthe proposal. The reasons Monaco cited for presenting
the proposal include: (1) the Atlantic blueﬁn tuna population has seen a drastic decline; and (2) the functionof the International Commission for the Conservationof Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT) to conserve this stock is notadequate, as seen in the case where the exploitableamount has been decided without fully considering theadvice of scientists.
Japan is opposed to Monaco’s proposal for the following reasons:(1) The Atlantic blueﬁn tuna does not meet the criteria for listing on CITES Appendix I, given the current
status of the population;(2) ICCAT should be primarily responsible for theconservation of Atlantic blueﬁn tuna and the management of its ﬁsheries, with CITES playing a clearly different role; and(3) ICCAT can further improve its ﬁsheries management measures for the conservation of Atlantic blueﬁntuna.
ICCAT will hold its annual meeting November 6-15
in Recife, Brazil.

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ISARIBI NO.64

NOV. 2009

Tuna Issue
Global ﬁshing capacity for tunas is too high--RFMOs agree in their second joint meeting--

TYuichiro Harada
Managing Director,Organization for the Promotion of Responsible Tuna Fisheries (OPRT)
http://www.oprt.or.jp

he second Joint Meeting of Regional TunaFisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs)
was held in San Sebastian, Spain, from June
29 through July 3, 2009. A total of 50 member
countries of the RFMOs participated, together withinternational organizations, such as the United
Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO),
and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
The ﬁrst joint meeting was held in Kobe, Japan,
in January 2007, in which the Course of Actions
was adopted to pursue, through cooperation amongRFMOs, the solution to global issues such as illegal,unreported and unregulated (IUU) ﬁshing activities
and overﬁshing capacity (i.e. the excessive numberof fishing vessels). The second meeting intended
to assess the progress of the Course of Actions anddecide on the next steps to be taken with regard to
the impending issues.
As a result, a number of issues were brought tolight, as the case of further increase in the numberof ﬁshing vessels to the level not matching the actualstock level. When we focused on the central issue of
overfishing capacity alone, we came to a renewedrecognition that its solution was never easy. In what
follows, a brief review of the results of discussion on
the issue of overﬁshing capacity is given.
1) The catch of tunas around the world
increased, while it generated IUU fishingactivities
With respect to the overﬁshing capacity issue, it
was stated explicitly in the Report of the meeting:"the participants agreed that global ﬁshing capacity
for tunas is too high, and that this problem needs tobe urgently addressed." It was thus conﬁrmed that
overﬁshing capacity is an issue requiring immediate
action. The seriousness of the overfishing capacity
issue can be readily understood if we look at therapid increase in tuna catch in the world in recentyears.
Put otherwise, the world tuna catch had beenaround 500,000 tons in the 1950s, but expanded toexceed 4.2 million tons in 2007 and has continued
growth to date. Notably, the world tuna catches
showed a sharp increase since the 1990s. The maincause of this increase was obviously the presenceof purse-seine fishing vessels that catch tunas asmaterials for canned tuna (See Figure on next page).
The Japanese government limited the numberof its licensed large-scale purse-seiners to 35, to
restrain the expansion of catch volume. There seems
to be only a few cpimtroes that have taken a similareffective ﬁsheries management measure.
Furthermore, in recent years, purse-seine ﬁshingvessels are reinforcing their catch capability byusing fish aggregating devices (FADs). However,the FAD-based fishing method causes massive catchof small-size bigeye and yellowfin tunas, creating
concern over the negative impact on their population.
In point of fact, this issue was debated at the firstjoint RFMO meeting and the need to promote studies
on technology to avoid catch of small-size tunas wasincorporated in the Course of Actions.
According to assessment by scientists, major
tuna resources have exceeded the population level
necessary to maintain their sustainable production.
Rigorous catch limits have been introduced for somespecies like Atlantic blueﬁn tunas and southern blueﬁntunas. Under these circumstances surrounding thetuna resources, there is a strong likelihood that itwould become extremely difﬁcult at some point in thefuture to continue commercial tuna ﬁshing, regardlessof ﬁshing methods, if the expansion of ﬁshing capacity
continues as it does now.
In face of this situation, each tuna RFMO is moving
toward strengthening its catch regulations in a bid
to help recover and preserve the tuna resources.
But no improvement of the situation is likely evenwhen catches are restrained if the underlying issueof overfishing capacity is left unattended. Rather, it
could lead to IUU ﬁshing practices, such as falsiﬁcationof catch volume and negligence in reporting, as wasseen in bluefin tuna farming in the Mediterranean.
There is a need to make serious efforts to implement
global measures to reduce tuna overfishing capacity
expeditiously.
2) Difﬁculty in introducing concrete measures
It is to be noted that there was the position ofdeveloping countries, such as Paciﬁc island countries,
in the background of the failure for the RFMO joint
meeting to reach an agreement toward introductionof the concrete measures for the solution of theissue of the overﬁshing capacity. The Forum Fisheries
Agency (FFA), which represents 17 countries andterritories in the South Paciﬁc, stressed in its opening
statement "the need of full recognition of the special
requirements of developing states, particularly small
island developing states." It said that "RFMOs should
ﬁnd ways to implement Articles 24 to 26 in the United
Nations Fish Stocks Agreement." Thus the FFA calledthat the introduction of capacity limit may not blockthe development of those countries domestic ﬁsheries.
In the end, it was stated in the Course of Actions,adopted at the meeting: "This problem should beaddressed in a way that does not constrain the accessto, development of, and beneﬁt from sustainable tuna
fisheries, by developing coastal States, in particularsmall island developing states, territories, and Stateswith small and vulnerable economies."
As a result, it was decided that the management ofﬁshing capacity would be addressed at an international

Page 3

ISARIBI NO.64

NOV. 2009

World Major Tuna Catches by Fishing Gears (1950-2007)
3000

Bait Boat

Longline

Troll

OthersPurse seine

2500

1000 Ｍetric Ton

2000

1500

1000

500

01950

1955

1960

1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

Tuna Catches include Bluefin tuna, Southern bluefin tuna, Bigeye tuna, Yellowfin tuna, Albacore and Skipjack.
Data compiled by Miyake based on RFMOs bases.

Workshop in the future, and no concrete steps wereintroduced at this meeting, such as freezing andrestraint of expansion of the global tuna fishingcapacity.
Needless to say, the international society shouldrecognize and respect the special requirement ofdeveloping countries. But, at the same time, thesituation where global scale management of ﬁshingcapacity has become crucial should not go unnoticed
in order to ensure sustainable utilization of tuna
resources. This need may be appreciated easily if we
direct our attention to what now is going on in thewestern and central Paciﬁc, as will be stated below,
3) Large-scale purse-seine fishing vessels are
increasing rapidly in the western and central
Pacific, causing an imminent threat to thesustainable use of tuna resources
At this joint meeting, the Japanese government
reported that the number of large-scale purse-seine
fishing vessels increased by 39 in the western andcentral Paciﬁc during the past decade, and stressed
the need to take expeditious actions to restrain
fishing capacity. (A large-scale purse-seine fishingvessel catches 7,000 to 10,000 tons of tunas in ayear.)
It is said that large-scale purse-seine fishingvessels having such a powerful ﬁshing capacity haveincreased by 39 (20 of which being from developing
island countries), and it is also said that further
increase is projected in the future. If this situationis left unattended, it will certainly become difficult
to ensure the sustainability of tuna resources in thewestern and central Paciﬁc. To cite a case in point,the Western and Central Paciﬁc Fisheries Commission(WCPFC) has introduced a measure to reduce thecatch of bigeye tuna in the area under its competenceby 30% in three years from 2009.
If further expansion of overfishing capacity ontuna resources is not checked and resultantly
the stock level goes down to the point where it
can no longer support commercial catches, thendeveloping countries may be compelled to terminate
development of their tuna fisheries through which
they intend to create a new export industry. In orderfor the international society to help avoid
such a consequence and respond to special
requirement of developing countries, thereshould be a way to develop a compromiseat any cost between "the willingness ofdeveloping countries to develop theirtuna fisheries" and "the need for global
restraint in fishing capacity." This task
was entrusted to the aforementioned
Workshop, but it seems a long way before
an agreement can be reached under thepresent circumstances where the interestsof nations are in a stark confrontation.
The other day, a ﬁsheries expert reported
that the yellow light is beginning to blink
with regard to the catches of skipjacktunas in the western and central Pacific-- the stock that has been assessed as"robust" to date. At any rate, it seems to2000
2005
me that the situation has aggravated tothe point where all the nations concerned
have to take urgent actions to restrain
overfishing capacity, in particular that of purse-seineﬁshing vessels.We hope that this Workshop will develop
its constructive proposal as expeditiously as possible.
(As a part of the efforts in this direction, the membersof OPRT from various countries have already agreed
on not increasing the number of large-scale longline
fishing vessels and have been implementing themeasures toward that goal.)

MEL Japan News
Positive effects of MEL Japancertiﬁcation scheme--Crab Pot Association educates children
on the importance of stock management--The Sea of Japan Crab Pot Association (President:Masato Nishino) in Sakaiminato, Tottori Prefecture, Western Japan, that obtained the ﬁrst Marine Eco-label Japan (MEL Japan) certification, sponsored a teaching session at Sakai Elementary Schoolon June 19 this year to educate local children about thered snow crab ﬁshery in the Sea of Japan.
The project was conducted with voluntary cooperation from fishermen and the Fisheries Section of
Sakaiminato Municipal Ofﬁce.
After the presentation on the ecology and outlineof the ﬁshery as well as the stock management that
led to the acquisition of MEL Japan certiﬁcation, a redsnow crab was given to each of the 66 ﬁfth graders of
the school who participated in the event. The children
cooked the crab using kitchen scissors and experienced
the taste of the crab. The association says it is ready toaccept further requests from other schools to sponsor
similar teaching sessions, and the MEL Japan Secretariat is fully supportive of this initiative.
On another topic, the MEL Japan Secretariat held
several meetings of its Technical Advisory Group during
the past months with the aim to review the standards
to examine its applicability to ﬁsheries of broader range
including enhanced ﬁsheries.

The readers are cordially invited to send their comments on articles in this issue to mnishimu@suisankai.or.jp--Editor