[Michael_Voyageur]

Les japonais, trop gros consommateurs de poisson ?


D'après un rapport des Nation Unies, plus de 70% des réserves sauvages de poissons sont sur-exploitées, en état d'apauvrissement sérieux, en lente récuperation après apauvrissement, ou bien proche du niveau maximum d'exploitation.
Or le Japon est de très loin le plus gros consommateurs de poissons, avec par exemple plus de 460 000 tonnes de thon par an depuis 2002.

Les gouvernements, y compris le gouvernement japonais commence a prendre conscience du probleme et lancent des initiatives pour repeupler les mers des espèces souffrant le plus des pêches massives.

Source : Reuters Foundation

FEATURE-Japanese love fish too much for fragile stocks
By Elaine Lies

TOKYO, Feb 18 (Reuters) - A full moon hangs low in the pre-dawn Tokyo sky as the tuna auction gets under way.

"Good morning!" the auctioneer shouts before launching into a rapid chant, knees bending rhythmically and fist pumping the air, while poker-faced men in front of him hold up their fingers over rows of frozen fish lining the cement floor.

In moments it is over and a huge tuna, over a metre (yard) long, is dragged away. By nightfall, it will be on tables around the city, commanding top prices from eager diners.

As Japanese gourmets dig in, few are aware that their cherished delicacy could one day vanish, victim of a voracious global appetite for fish that has led to widespread overfishing and pushed many species, including some varieties of bluefin tuna, close to the edge.

According to the United Nations, more than 70 percent of the world's commercially important fish stocks are either over-exploited, depleted, slowly recovering or close to the maximum sustainable level of exploitation.

Delegates from around the globe have been in Kuala Lumpur this week for a meeting of parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, which began on February 9.

The U.N. agreement is intended to slow the rate of global extinctions of animals and plants significantly by 2010, including via marine protected areas.

"Every year too much is being put under pressure," said Serge Garcia, director of the Fisheries Resources Division at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Rome.

"All the high-value resources are in trouble."

Threats to sea life come from fishing practices that result in discarding unwanted fish, inefficient use of the fish once caught, and, environmental groups say, trawlers that scrape the ocean bed with nets, heavy chains and steel plates.

But at bottom, it is driven by simple market factors, of which Japan's huge demand for prime seafood, especially bluefin tuna, is a crucial part.

LARGEST FISH CONSUMER

At Tokyo's central Tsukiji fish market, where about $18.9 million of seafood is sold daily, there are no signs of shortage.

Shrimp, scallops and octopus are heaped on ice, crabs and sea bream nestle in styrofoam boxes. Flounders flap in shallow trays near where men cut tuna apart with electric saws and adzes.

Even in Japan, the world's largest overall fish consumer, tuna in many ways is king. In 2002 alone, 460,000 tonnes of tuna was consumed raw, with the most coveted being the fatty meat near the pectoral fins by the head, known as toro.

"Japanese especially like raw fish, but unless it's really fatty it's no good," said Hisao Nagayama, who researches food history. "The parts of the fish we eat are actually rather few.

"But resources are falling and we can't just eat everything we want these days. We have to do something about fish stocks."

Governments are reaching the same conclusion.

(... voir la suite de l'article sur le site de Reuters )
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Michael_Voyageur

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