Showdown looms over $7 billion tuna catch

MAJURO, Marshall Islands: The future of the world’s largest tuna fishery will be decided at a meeting in Australia this week, with Pacific island nations demanding tighter controls on a catch now worth $7.0 billion a year.

A record 2.65 million tons of tuna was hauled from the Pacific last year, accounting for 60 percent of the global catch, with most of the fishing conducted by so-called distant water fleets from as far afield as Europe, the United States, China, Korea and Taiwan.