what’s the story?

THE future of a bustling fish market that has achieved almost legendary status is as uncertain as one of its specialities – the bluefin tuna.

Tsukiji in Japan is the biggest fish market in the world and is known not just for its size but because of its controversial auctions of the endangered bluefin.

In an ironic twist, however, the continued existence of the market is now as shaky as that of the fish.

An alternative market has been constructed but not only has it been built on contaminated land but it is also further from the expensive sushi restaurants the market supplies.

Currently a major tourist attraction, the traders fear the market will sink into obscurity at the new site although that could be good news for the bluefin.

Conservationists were outraged earlier this month when one 212kg fish was bought at auction for the outlandish sum of £517,000.

The overpriced sale was made in order to secure publicity for the buyer, wealthy restaurant owner Kiyoshi Kimura.

Campaigners said the desperate plight of the Pacific bluefin was being ignored in the fuss about the sale.

WHY IS IT IN DANGER?

JAPAN is continuing to resist calls for a moratorium on fishing for the Pacific bluefin even though numbers have plummeted by a catastrophic 97 per cent.

“People should be thinking about that when they see news about the auction,” Jamie Gibbon, of Pew Charitable Trusts.

While the price was incredibly high and means that each piece of tuna sushi from the fish will be worth around 25 times the price it usually costs in Kimura’s restaurants, it is not a record bid.

That was also made by Kimura in 2013 when he paid £1.4 million for a 222kg bluefin, a price that engendered headlines around the world and gave invaluable publicity for his sushi chain, already the most successful in the country.

This year the so-called Tuna King said the price was “a bit expensive, but I am happy that I was able to successfully win at auction a tuna of good shape and size”.

His words merely infuriated conservationists who point out that Pacific bluefin is being fished at rates up to three times higher than scientists say is sustainable.

Last July, the Pew Charitable Trusts called for a two-year moratorium on commercial fishing of Pacific bluefin.

CAN ANYTHING BE DONE?

IN December, 25 tuna fishing countries as well as the European Union agreed urgent measures should be taken to save the fish but Japan is resisting calls for a moratorium and proposals for a severe cut in catch quotas.

“If fishing continues at its current rate, then Pacific bluefin stocks will fall to levels that are commercially unsustainable, but Japanese officials continue to say that catch reductions will place too big a burden on fishermen,” said Gibbon. “Short-term profits are being put ahead of long-term conservation.”

The Japanese are the biggest consumers of bluefin tuna, consuming around 80 per cent of the global catch. It is a prized ingredient in sushi and sashimi and a slice of otoro, cut from the fatty underbelly, is priced at several thousand yen in expensive Tokyo restaurants.

It was thought that the Pacific bluefin was in better shape than its cousin in the Atlantic where stocks have fallen by 95 per cent since the 1960s but recent research shows its future is just as precarious.

Japan is one of the countries that has blocked attempts by the United Nations to impose a ban on fishing for Atlantic bluefin to allow stocks to recover and is reacting in the same way to suggestions of a Pacific bluefin fishing ban even though supplies at Tsukiji are continually dwindling.

WHAT IF THE MARKET MOVES?

THE demise of the bluefin is not the only threat to the Tokyo market where seafood transactions are worth £15.5 million a day.

More than 400 varieties of seafood are handled every day at the market and it supports around 60,000 jobs. The home market is healthy with the Japanese consuming more fish per capita (around 27kg annually) than any other country but there is increasing demand from South Korea, China and even Europe for Japanese fish exports.

The name Tsukiji is synonymous with quality for buyers but there is disquiet over the proposed move after the new site was found to be polluted with dangerous toxins. It lies on an artificial island across Tokyo Bay which was the base for a chemical plant. The site was known to be contaminated but was supposed to have been cleaned up before construction began.

However, it has transpired that the clean soil which was to have covered the dirty ground was never put on and tests ordered by the city’s new governor Yuriko Koike found benzene levels 79 times higher than the government’s own safety limits.

Some of the traders suspect that in the rush to move the market, data from the original ground-water tests was altered in order to have the plans approved quickly.

IS THERE A FUTURE?

NOW that the pollution has been revealed the move has been postponed for the results of further tests, expected later this month. It’s good news for the traders who have no wish to move away from their nearby customers.

“I don’t want to move. Ginza has 200 sushi shops. That culture was made by this place because we are close. It’s only a 10-minute walk from there to this market,” said Toichiro Iida, whose business has been in his family for eight generations.

Set up in the 19th century when the shoguns still held sway in Japan, the business was first established in the old fish market which was destroyed in the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 and has been at Tsukiji since 1935.

Iida-San now fears for the future not just because of the move but also due to the dwindling supply of bluefin.

“When I started working in this market every day at the auction we had maybe 5,000 frozen tuna and 2,000 to 2,500 fresh tuna,” he remembered. “But now we have 1,000 or less frozen tuna each day, and fresh tuna is 200 or 100 or less. We don’t have enough fish to sell to our customers. I think maybe it’s going to be like what happened to the whale.”