Rising demand for sushi is helping to drive tuna stocks to the edge of collapse and could lead to the seasonal closure of fishing grounds.
Urgent intervention and stringent new controls are being called for by ministers from the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to preserve stocks of the fish which is being exploited to meet the consumer boom in healthy eating. The Government will press its demands at a meeting in November of Iccat, the intergovernmental commission on tuna preservation.
The measures come amid mounting evidence from environmental groups such as WWF and Greenpeace that European fishing fleets are illegally catching far more tuna than quotas allow.