Members of a multinational consultative body for fish resources management in the Central and Western Pacific have wrapped up a five-day meeting in Busan, South Korea, with an agreement to cut the area's bigeye tuna catch by 10 percent a year for the three-year period from 2009 to stem the species' depletion, the Fisheries Agency said.
The accord, struck Friday at the annual meeting of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, mandates cutting members' bigeye tuna catch by 10 percent each in 2009, 2010 and 2011, compared with their average catch in the four-year period from 2001 to 2004.
The world's combined bigeye tuna haul stood at 413,000 tons in 2006, according to the agency. The Central and Western Pacific accounted for a 139,000-ton portion of the total.
Bigeye tuna is more affordable than bluefin tuna, which has been widely used in dishes such as sushi and sashimi. Bigeye tuna is also consumed raw as sashimi and sushi in Japan, so the deal may have an impact on consumers by limiting bigeye tuna supplies or hiking their prices.