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sort, sushi has become not just cool, but popular. global popu131-ity as an emblem of a sophisticated,
The painted window of a Cambridge, Massachu- cosmopolitan consumer class more or less coincided
setts, coffee shop advertises "espresso, cappuccino, with a profound transformation in the internation-
carrot juice, lasagna, and sushi." Mashed potatoes al role of the Japanese fishing industry. From the
with wasabi (horseradish), sushi-ginger relish, and 1970s onward, the expansion of 200-mile fishing lim-
seared sashimi-grade tuna steaks show Japan's grow- its around the world excluded foreign fleets from the
ing cultural influence on upscale nouvelle cuisine prime fishing grounds of many coastal nations. And
throughout North America, Europe, and Latin Amer- international environmental campaigns forced many
ica. Sushi has even become the stuff of fashion, from countries, Japan among them, to scale back their
"sushi" lip gloss, colored the deep red of raw tuna, distant water fleets. With their fishing -
- operations
to "wasabi" nail polish, a soft avocado green. curtailed and their yen for sushi still growing, Japan-
ese had to turn to foreign suppliers.
Jumbo jets brought New England's bluefin tuna
ANGLING FOR NEW CONSUMERS into easy reach of Tokyo, just as Japan's consumer
Japan remains the world's primary market for fresh economy-a byproduct of the now disparaged "bub-
tuna for sushi and sashimi; demand in other countries ble" years-went into hyperdrive. The sushi business
is a product of Japanese influence and the creation boomed. During the 1980s, total Japanese imports
of new markets by domestic producers looking to of fresh bluefin tuna worldwide increased from 957
expand their reach. Perhaps not surprisingly, sushi's metric tons (531 from the United States) in 1984 to

Sfateless Fish bers, including Atlantic and Society, and industry groups dis-
Mediterranean fishing countries agree over how many bluefin
s the bluefin business and three global fishing powers: migrate across the Atlantic, and
grows ever more lucra- South Korea, China, and Japan. whether or not they are all part
Ative, the risk of overfish- In recent years, conservation of the same breeding stock.
ing has become ever more real. groups have criticized ICCAT for What's the big deal? If there are
The question of who profits from not regulating more aggressively two (or more) stocks, as ICCAT
the world's demand for sushi to prevent or reverse an apparent maintains, then conservation
makes for battles among fishers, bluefin population decline in the efforts can vary from one side
regulators, and conservationists. Western Atlantic. Some activists of the Atlantic to the other.
Bluefin tuna have been have campaigned to have bluefin When ICCAT registered a dra-
clocked at 50 miles per hour, and tuna protected under the Con- matic decline in bluefin catches
tagged fish have crossed the vention on International Trade off North America, it imposed
Atlantic in about two months. in Endangered Species, or CITES. stringent quotas on North Amer-
Since bluefin swim across multi- At least in part to keep that from ica's mainly small-scale fishing
ple national jurisdictions, inter- happening, Japan and ICCAT outfits. On the European side of
national regulations must impose have implemented new systems the Atlantic, however, industri-
political order on stateless fish. to track and regulate trade; al-strength fishing efforts contin-
Charged with writing those "undocumented fish" from ued. American fishers, not sur-
regulations is the International nations that fail to comply with prisingly, point to evidence of
Commission for the Conserva- ICCAT regulations are now cross-Atlantic migration and
tion of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), banned from Japanese markets. genetic studies of intermingling
which assigns quotas for bluefin Regulations, though, are to argue that Europeans need to
tuna and related species in the complicated by how far and fast conserve bluefin more strenu-
North Atlantic and the Mediter- these fish can travel: No one can ously as well. ICCAT'S regulations,
ranean and directs catch report- say for certain whether there is they argue, protect bluefin at
ing, trade monitoring, and pop- one bluefin population in the America's expense only, and ulti-
ulation assessments. Based in Atlantic or several. ICCAT, the mately, fishers from other coun-
Madrid since its founding in U.S. National Academy of Sci- tries pocket Japanese yen.
1969, ICCAT now has 28 mem- ences, the National Audubon -T C.B.