A Marine Stewardship Council-certified Atlantic bluefin tuna was sold for the first time at Tokyo’s Toyosu Market on 1 September. Usufuku Honten Northeast Atlantic longline bluefin tuna fishery was certified by the MSC on 10 August, 2020.
The fish was caught in October 2019 by the longline vessel Shofukumaru, which fishes out of the Canary Islands. Usufuku Honten Co., Ltd., based in Kessenuma, Miyagi Prefecture, is the operator. The fish was entered to the auction by Tokyo-based Daiichi Suisan Co., Ltd. and bought by intermediate tuna dealer Ohana, which sold it to Tokyo sushi restaurant Matsunozushi.
The single frozen fish, weighing 142 kilograms, sold at a price per kilogram that was 61 percent higher than the high price of the previous day. This may be a staged promotional gimmick, since the product cannot be retailed under the MSC label, as the buyers do not have chain of custody (CoC) certification.
The species, which was once listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as ‘endangered,” has become the poster child for sustainable fishing campaigns. However, reduced catch quotas and better protection for juveniles by the regional fishery management organization, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), resulted in a surprising rebound. The European, or “eastern stock” population, which excludes the Mediterranean, is currently rated “near-threatened,” two steps down from “endangered.”
The recovery led to the conformity assessment body, Control Union (UK) Limited, recommending certification of the Usufuku Honten Northeast Atlantic longline bluefin tuna fishery. The assessment was challenged by environmental NGOs the Pew Charitable Trusts and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
WWF, which was one of the founders of the MSC, submitted a detailed formal objection. WWF challenged Control Union’s assertion that ICCAT had judged the stock as fully recovered, and criticized that the stock assessment was made by virtual population analysis (VPA), which depends on catch-report data. Such a system is vulnerable to underreporting and ICCAT has had trouble with chronic underreporting in the past.
This objection was ultimately rejected by the independent adjudicator, which considered sufficient a requirement that by year 2025 (year five of the certification) Usufuku Honten should be able to show that the eastern population stock of bluefin tuna is at or fluctuating around a level consistent with maximum sustainable yield.
The approval sets a precedent for others. SATHOAN French Mediterranean Bluefin tuna artisanal longline and handline fishery is now in the assessment stage, using Control Union Pesca, which is in the same corporate group as Control Union (UK) Limited, as the conformity assessment body.
Photo courtesy of Matsunozushi
