Japan and the European Union agreed yesterday to cut their annual tuna catch by almost a quarter, after warnings by environmentalists that international hunger for the fish is driving it towards extinction.

After three days of negotiations in Tokyo, the EU agreed to reduce its annual quota for the prized bluefin tuna in the Atlantic and Mediterranean to 14,500 tons, a 21 per cent cut. Japan, whose fishing fleet roams the world to satisfy the demand for tuna sushi and raw sashimi, will make a 23 per cent cut in the same waters, from 2,830 tons of bluefin last year to 2,175 tons by 2010.

The announcement comes at a time of increasing anxiety about the impact of unrestrained fishing on one of the most valuable and sought-after fish in the world: in several regions tuna species have been fished close to exhaustion. But the hunt continues: by value, 11 per cent of fish caught for consumption in the world are tuna.

“If the current level of fishing continues or increases, then, sooner rather than later, tuna stocks will collapse,” the wild-life conservation group WWF said in a recent report. “The result will be a huge loss of revenue, and the worrying prospect in some parts of the world of reduced food security for the world’s poorest people.”

Last week, in the Japanese city of Kobe, the five regional organisations that manage tuna fishing gathered to address the problem. They agreed to share information to enable them to keep track of global trade, to tag tuna to get a more accurate idea of their numbers and to work together to blacklist tuna poachers. But environmentalists, including the WWF, condemned the meeting for failing to agree on concrete measures to reduce the “plunder” of tuna.

The quota cuts address that criticism, although obstacles to their practical implementation remain. The governments of Libya and Turkey, which, along with the EU states, are members of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, objected to the uniform reduction of 23 per cent for Mediterranean countries and demanded reduced cuts. If they choose to file formal complaints with the tuna commission, the decision at yesterday’s meeting will not be binding on them.

Tuna fishing is a huge industry. In 2002, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, tuna exports worldwide earned £2.6 billion. The industry is difficult to regulate, however, because of the speed with which fishing fleets and their quarry cover huge distances across international waters.

Bluefin tuna are the most valuable fish in the sea. In 2001, in Tokyo’s famous Tsukiji fish market, a single specimen sold for $173,600 (about £85,000). But, along with the South Atlantic albacore, the bluefin is critically endangered in both the southern hemisphere and the western Atlantic, where stocks have fallen to one eighth of their size 30 years ago.

Apart from the impact on stocks of the fish, the tuna industry kills many other marine species. The so-called by-catch includes sharks, turtles and sea birds such as albatrosses.

In another move to preserve marine species yesterday, Britain announced a campaign to recruit opponents of the Japanese campaign to lift the ban on whaling. Last year pro-whal-ing nations achieved a majority in the International Whaling Commission, which agreed to the ban in 1986.

“We believe that whale-watching is the only use of whales which is both humane and sensible,” Tony Blair wrote in a document that encourages antiwhaling nations to join the 72-member commission. “We urge your government to join the UK and other antiwhaling nations in the International Whaling Commission to ensure that our generation meets its global responsibility to protect whales.”

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