Members want better deals from DWFNs

Alfred Sasako
Members of the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency [FFA] have long suspected they are not getting the best for their tuna.

They believe, with some justification that Distant Water Fishing Nations [DWFNs], such as Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, among others, have been getting away with far too much for far too long.

But because these countries also have close bilateral relations with FFA members, no one has dared to make a move.

Under-pricing and under-reporting of catches have remained largely untouched, until now, that is. It came to a head a few years ago when FFA members decided to address them by making it compulsory for DWFNs to install Vessels Monitoring System (VMS) devices on their fishing boat as a condition for licensing.

The VMS is largely a conservation tool designed to help FFA members keep a tab on foreign fishing fleets licensed to fish in their EEZs (exclusive economic zones).

Each of the DWFNs is required to install the system on all its fishing boats, registered and licensed to fish in the region. Despite protests, DWFNs in the end installed the devices on their boats.
VMS monitors ships’ movement on a 24-hour basis and, to an extent, the catches they hauled in from member countries’ EEZs.

A few years on, DWFNs appeared to capitalise on the weaknesses in the system. For example, because fishing boats’ position can only be tracked down when the boat’s VMS is switched on, the VMS was unable to track down fishing boats that switched theirs off.

Now some FFA members, particularly the Parties of the Nauru Agreement (PNA), have established, at least since the VMS was introduced that foreign fishing boats only switched on their VMS radio when they were in high seas or international waters.

They simply switch off their radio as soon as they are fishing in EEZ waters of FFA members, officials said.

Because of this, it was impossible to keep an accurate record of how much fish was caught in EEZ waters of FFA members as opposed to those caught in international waters.

DWFNs only pay fees for the fish shown in their record to have been caught in FFA members’ EEZs.

“It was simply their way of trying to avoid paying extra for their catches. And guess who’s losing out? It is us the member countries in the region,” one official said.

Concerns by FFA members over under-reporting which often leads to lower pricing, among others, led to the creation recently of the Western Central Pacific Fisheries Commission [WCPFC].

But officials are beginning to express some pessimism about the commission. In their view, the commission has been rather slow in addressing key issues confronting the region’s tuna fisheries, said to be among the richest in the world and the only healthiest.

They want to see tough conservation and management regime for the high seas to be coming out of the commission.

Many FFA members, particularly the Parties to the Nauru Agreement [PNA]—Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu—complained the commission, based in Pohnpei, the capital of the Federated States of Micronesia, has been too slow to act.

“It has made little headway on anything since its inception,” one frustrated official said.

One of the many growing concerns by PNA is that while the commission remains largely non-active, DWFNs are having a field day in the EEZs of FFA members.

Concerns by FFA members are not without basis. A scientific report on the status of tuna fisheries in the Pacific showed that in 2006 near record catches were recorded by purse seine fleets fishing in FFA members’ EEZs.

The report was prepared by the Noumea-based Secretariat of the Pacific Commission. It showed, for example:
• Total catch in 2006 - 2.6 million tonne, a near record; landed value—more than US$3 billion.
• In terms of fishing methods used, purse seine topped the bill. In that year, it caught 1.55 million tonne, a near record as well, valued at more than US$1.6 billion.
• In long-line fishing, catch actually fell 10 percent on 2005 figure. Recorded catch was 226,000 tonnes, valued at US$1.1 billion.
• Catch in Pole and Line was stable at 212,000 tonnes and valued at US$270 million.
• Overall, the total catch of 2.6 million tonne in 2006 was a near record.????

Presented at the 67th Forum Fisheries Committee meeting in Koror, Palau in May by SPC’s John Hampton, the report warned that yellowfin tuna faced a “high risk of over-fishing”.

In bigeye tuna, over-fishing is already occurring, he said. To save the bigeye tuna, the report counsels a 25 percent reduction from the 2001-2004 average catch level.

In yellowfin, it recommended a reduction from 200 -2005 average level. The report warned the response by WCPFC so far to restrict fishing effort or catches to 2004 levels would make little or no difference.

“This response is unlikely to remove overfishing of bigeye tuna or reduce the risk of overfishing yellowfin tuna,” the report said.

At their two-day meeting in Koror, Palau, last month [May], PNA could not take it anymore.

The PNA meeting was held on the back of the 67th Forum Fisheries Committee Meeting, held under the theme: “Ensure Sustainable Management of Fisheries Resources through Regional Unity.”

Armed with information from the SPC scientific report and data from other sources, the PNA pounced.

Five PNA ministers, one more than the number required, signed the Third Implementing Arrangement, which committed members to adopt tough new measures to address over-fishing and under-pricing for their tuna stocks.

From June 16, for example, foreign fishing boats will no longer be allowed to fish in high seas pockets adjacent to the Exclusive Economic Zones [EEZs] of Parties to the Nauru Agreement [PNA].

According to PNA officials, foreign fishing boats have been using these four enclaves, sometimes referred to as the “donut holes” to mislead FFA and its members about fish catches. No more.

There are four pockets of high seas in the Pacific. The first is located north of Papua New Guinea with its boundary jointly shared by FSM and Palau. The boundary of the second area, the largest of the four, is shared by PNG, Nauru, Marshall Islands, FSM, Kiribati, Tuvalu and Solomon Islands.

The boundary of the third area is jointly shared by Vanuatu, Fiji and Solomon Islands. The fourth which is located to the east of the Pacific is shared by the Cook Islands, French Polynesia and Kiribati.

Existing fishing agreements will not be affected.

“Existing agreements will be allowed to run their full term. All fishing agreements after that will be subject to the new conservation and management regime we have just adopted,” one PNA official said.

The pockets of high seas will become an integral part of any new fishing agreement.

“This means the new licences to be issued, will make it clear that by signing on the dotted line, fishing companies agree not to fish in these pockets of high sea areas.

“If they refuse, well, sorry—they will just have to go somewhere else,” officials said.

The new measures also include a requirement that foreign fishing boats retain their full catches, regardless of whether or not they are tuna stocks.

As well, the use of Fishing Aggregating Devices [FADs], a device used to attract juvenile bigeye and yellowfin tuna, will be banned in PNA Members’ EEZs in the third quarter of each year.

These measures will be backed by 100 percent observer programme-that is, all foreign fishing boats will be required to carry observers onboard. But what does it all mean? For example, what is the intention for the full catch retention?

According to officials, this measure is intended to cut the time fishing boats spend at sea. At present, they throw away non-tuna stocks to make room for only tuna, allowing them to spend a much longer time at sea.

“This is an unsustainable practice, which we have decided to address. By adopting this measure, the fishing boats, we hope will spend less time at sea, which means less fishing for tuna,” the officials said.

Palau, a PNA member, has moved two steps ahead. Vice President Elias Camsek Chin told fisheries ministers his country has banned the export of live reef fish. This law came into force in May.

He said a bill to phase out commercial fishing by foreign fishing boats is before his country’s parliament. It went through the first reading in January.

PNA members said they would be seeking the support of other FFA members to apply similar measures in their Exclusive Economic Zones [EEZs] and to propose the Western Central Pacific Fisheries [WCPF] Commission adopts similar measures for the high seas. 

Other FFA members may not need much convincing.

The measures adopted by the PNA members were actually developed by FFA members at last year’s Management Options Workshop.

Parties to the Nauru Agreement said they have decided to “apply these measures to their EEZs as a demonstration of their desire to seek additional conservation and management measures to address the ongoing concerns about the continuing decline in bigeye and yellowfin stocks”.

Most of the tuna stocks from the Pacific, valued at more than US$3 billion a year, come from the waters of PNA members.

Officials are hopeful the action by PNA members would encourage the Pohnpei-based Western Central Pacific Fisheries Commission to adopt compatible measures for the high seas.

Such a move by the commission, they said, would strengthen its work, enabling it to concentrate on its two core functions of setting standards for the convention area as whole and applying compatible measures for the high seas.