The Quota For North Pacific Saury Is Cut By Another 10%, And The Resource Crisis Has Hit A Record Low!

The North Pacific Fisheries Commission (NPFC) recently reached a resolution at its annual meeting in Osaka, Japan, agreeing to reduce the total allowable catch (TAC) of North Pacific saury by 10% in 2025 and set the annual quota at 202,500 tons. The decision was officially announced by the Japanese Fisheries Agency on March 27. Due to the continuous decline of saury resources and poor fishing performance in recent years, the committee adopted the advice of the NPFC Scientific Committee and automatically triggered the production reduction mechanism based on resource assessment and the previous year's fishing situation.

The reduction brings the 2025 saury quota to its lowest level since the quota system was introduced in 2019. Of this, 121,500 tonnes are allocated to international waters and 81,000 tonnes to the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of Japan and Russia. The saury quota has undergone significant adjustments over the past few years. In 2023-2024, the highest quota set by the committee was 250,000 tonnes, while earlier it was as high as 333,750 tonnes. In 2024, this figure was automatically cut to 225,000 tonnes, and the latest adjustment in 2025 brought it down further to 202,500 tonnes.

Although Japan's saury catch reached 38,695 tons in 2023, an increase of 58% over the previous year, this figure is still far below the historical peak. Compared with the record of 343,225 tons set in 2008, the catch in 2023 was only one-tenth of that year. Data from the NPFC Scientific Committee showed that the saury population continued to be sluggish and the resource situation had not shown significant improvement, so the decision to reduce production was in line with long-term resource management goals. An official from the Fisheries Agency of Japan said: "The 10% reduction was automatically triggered based on the recommendation of the Scientific Committee, based on resource assessments and actual fishing performance."

In addition to saury, the NPFC also agreed to cut the 2025 mackerel quota. The original annual catch limit of 100,000 tons in 2024-2025 was reduced to 71,000 tons, a decrease of 29%. During the meeting, Japan had proposed a further reduction to 50,000 tons, citing a sharp drop in coastal catches and continued deterioration of resource conditions. However, since the two-year fishing plan was drawn up in advance, it was not easy to overturn the established decision, so a larger reduction was ultimately not reached. In recent years, the mackerel fishery along the Pacific coast of Japan has encountered serious difficulties, and catches have continued to be sluggish, which has also prompted the industry and regulators to strengthen resource management.

To further address the decline in mackerel resources, the Japanese Fisheries Agency held the fifth stakeholder meeting in Tokyo on March 19 to discuss future resource management plans. All parties agreed to set the total allowable catch of mackerel for the 2025 fishing year (July 2025 to June 2026) at 139,000 tons, a 60% reduction from 2024. This quota is expected to become the official fishing limit for the next season to prevent further decline in resources.

In addition, at this NPFC meeting, Japan proposed for the first time to set a fishing cap on Pacific sardines, suggesting a 70% quota based on the average annual catch of the past three years. However, the proposal failed to reach a consensus among member states and was therefore not adopted.

Overall, the NPFC meeting made major decisions on the management of saury and mackerel resources, further tightening fishing restrictions and highlighting the grim situation of global fishery resource management. Against the backdrop of continued low saury resources and declining mackerel catches, cooperation among countries in sustainable fishery management has become increasingly important. In the future, NPFC may continue to take stricter resource management measures to ensure the sustainable development of the North Pacific fishery.