Reuters, PARIS | Sat Nov 27, 2010 12:14pm EST
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Freshly-harvested Bluefin tunas are uploaded from a ''tuna farm'', off the Calabrian coast in southern Italy November 20, 2009. (Credit: Reuters/Tony Gentile) |
(Reuters) - Fishing nations agreed on Saturday to trim back the 2011 quota for catching Atlantic bluefin tuna, the ICCAT fisheries group said.
The Madrid-based International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) set a 2011 quota of 12,900 tones, down from 13,500 this year.
Prized by fishermen, Atlantic bluefin can weigh up to 650 kg (1,430 lb) and fetch as much as $100,000 in markets like Japan, where they are popular with sushi-lovers.
But their stocks have plunged by more than 80 percent since the 1970s, according to western scientists. The European Commission had said a limit of 6,000 tones was needed for 2011 to give the fish a real chance of recovery. Environmental groups say the quotas are anyway widely flouted.
The species is found in the north Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico and the Mediterranean, where captured fish are fattened in enclosures.
France, Italy and Spain catch most of the Atlantic bluefin consumed in the world and 80 percent of the haul goes to Japan.
(Reporting by Leigh Thomas; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
Conservationists have been demanding more
substantial reductions in fishing quotas
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