Tokyo clears its stand that it will not go into any agreement to ban the bluefin tuna under the United Nations treaty on endangered species. The negotiator, Masanori Miyahara, said that Japan “would have no choice but to take a reservation” — in effect, to ignore the ban and leave its market open to continued imports — if the species was granted most-endangered species status.
Miyahara, Japan’s top delegate to the United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, referred to as Cites, said the convention was the wrong forum for managing the fishing of bluefin tuna. A proposal for a ban is schedule to be presented at a Cites meeting next month in Doha, Qatar.
It is fact that Japan consumes about 80 percent of the bluefin tuna caught in the Mediterranean. Miyahara said that a different organization, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, known as Iccat, should manage bluefin tuna catches and protection, not CITES. According to him Japan acknowledges that the bluefin tuna needs protection, but the endangered-species convention is quite inflexible.
Meanwhile, Europe, which looked to be headed for a confrontation with Japan over the issue, now appears to be moving toward a compromise. France said that it was prepared to back an international trade ban at the Cites meeting, to take effect after 18 months. All 27 member nations of the European Union were expected to agree.
