To address depleted stocks, the TOKYO Kyodo, Japan, China and the seven other members of the North Pacific Fisheries Commission have agreed to reduce their combined saury catch quota by 25 percent from last year to 250,000 tons a year.
The catch limit will be in place for two years, as it was decided at the end of a three-day meeting in Sapporo. Tokyo proposed halving the quota to 170,000 tons in 2022, despite the fact that the parties had agreed on a 40 percent cut from the previous year in 2021 and kept it at 333,750 tons.
The quota remains well beyond the actual amount of saury caught by the members of the commissions, Japan, Canada, China, the European Union, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan, the United States, and Vanuatu, even after the latest change.
This is a fishing quota based on scientific grounds. Miwako Takase of Japan's Fisheries Agency said in a press conference that this is not enough, but we were able to take a step toward reinforcing the resource.
For the nine members of the 2021 and 2022, 198,000 tons were allocated for high seas and 135,750 tons for exclusive economic zones of Japan and Russia. Participants agreed to either slash the number of saury vessels by 10 percent from 2018 levels or set a 180 day season and ban on fishing outside that period.
The quota for saury fishing was introduced in 2019 and the members decided to cut the combined quota by 40 percent in 2021, as well as those for the high seas and Japan-Russia EEZs. The same quotas were applied in 2022.
Japan's catch in 2022 was record-low 18,000 tons, while Taiwan and China reported their catch declined about 40 percent and 24 percent from the previous year, respectively.
The annual meeting was originally scheduled for March last year, but was postponed due to Russia's war in Ukraine.