By Elaine Lies
Tokyo - 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 long, is dragged away. By nightfall, it will be on tables around the city, commanding top prices from eager diners.
'To take action to reduce fishing efforts is very, very painful politically' 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.
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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 UN 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 UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Rome.
"All the high-value resources are in trouble."
Threats to sea life come from fishing practises 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.
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