Photo/Illutration Bigeye tuna (Provided by the Japan Fisheries Research and Education Agency)

The Fisheries Agency will start restricting Japan’s catch of bigeye tuna in the Indian Ocean in 2024, but industry sources said the move will not significantly impact tuna prices in Japan.

The agency has already placed catch limits for the species in the Pacific Ocean and other waters.

Its restrictions in the Indian Ocean will come under an international framework aimed at recovering bigeye tuna stocks there.

At a meeting this month, the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission set quotas for members’ catches of bigeye tuna for the first time. The quotas cover 2024 and 2025.

The IOTC has 30 members.

Eight members, including Japan and the European Union, will reduce their catches of bigeye tuna by 1 to 18 percent under the quotas.

Japan was given an annual quota of 3,684 tons, down by 6 percent from its average catch of the species over the past five years.

However, Japan’s total catch of bigeye tuna reached about 33,000 tons in 2020.

A senior official of a pelagic fisheries organization said that with this much fish in store, the quota “will effectively not impact prices or distribution” of bigeye tuna.

This month’s IOTC meeting also considered reducing the catch quotas for yellowfin tuna, but an agreement could not be reached.

Quotas for Pacific bluefin tuna in western and central parts of the Pacific Ocean were increased in 2022.

That came after extensive restrictions on catches led to the recovery of the bluefin tuna population there.

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