Study identifies plethora of issues

Alfred Sasako
The tiny Pacific Islands nation of Kiribati drew the ire of the United States Government in the 80s, when Tarawa, largely dependent on remittances from its nationals working on foreign ships including fishing boats, entered into a fishing deal with the Soviet Union.

In keeping with Pacific Islands Forum protocol, none of the other members spoke out. They were nonetheless concerned.

In their view, Kiribati had opened the Pacific for heightened espionage activities between the United States and the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union, they say, could use its fishing fleet to eavesdrop on US military installations in the region, creating a potential for open confrontation between the two super powers.

On hindsight, many Pacific Islands Countries regretted having “missed the boat” when they could have backed Kiribati in the hope of re-engaging the United States in the Pacific.

As it turned out, the so-called Cold War between Moscow and Washington ended shortly after the fishing deal was struck. Washington withdrew, leaving the development-starved region largely unattended.

Now Kiribati is on it again, according to senior fisheries officials who attended the 67th Forum Fisheries Meeting in Koror, Palau, in May.

Tarawa, they say, has entered a fishing deal with Latin American Countries whose fishing boats will be allowed to fish in Kiribati’s rich Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZs).

At least six Latin American fishing boats have been licensed to fish.

At the Koror meeting, Tarawa was seeking discussions with other FFA members, particularly the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) with a view to increasing the number of boats.

“We simply ignored the request,” one PNA member said.

The reason? Latin American countries, they say, have the worst fishing practices.

Some reports say the Latin American fleet could be from Spanish fishing companies seeking new fishing grounds to beef up their tuna supplies.

With meagre or no resources at all to police the activities of foreign fishing boats licensed to fish in their waters, other FFA members fear that increasing the Latin American fishing fleet in the Pacific only increases the problems.

This view is supported by the findings of a high profile study released at the Palau meeting in May.

Funded by AusAID, the study was commissioned jointly by the Australian Government's Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry [DAFF] and the Honiara-based Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency [FFA].

Using the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources & Security [ANCORS] at the University of Wollongong as their base, the authors, Quentin Hanich, Feleti Teo and Martin Tsamenyi, visited some 100 institutions in 15 Pacific Islands Countries.

Titled, “Closing the Gaps: Building Capacity in Pacific Fisheries Governance and Institutions”, the study identified a plethora of issues right across the whole spectrum of fisheries management and development in the Pacific region.

Out of this, it has prioritised 26 governance and institutional gaps and weaknesses ‘that significantly challenge fisheries management and development.

“While national priorities will differ from country to country dependingon their national context, these 26 gaps directly and indirectly carry significant impacts across the region, the 271-page report said.

Number one on the list is that national institutions lack adequate resources and ability to effectively manage their fisheries.

At second place is the lack of “harmonised management” at the sub-regional level. In third place, the report identified national institutions lacking the capacity and procedures to adequately review licence applications.

Although corruption was seen as endemic in the fisheries sectors of Pacific Islands Countries, it surprisingly came 13th in the list of priorities.

It identified an assortment of other areas too. These include lack of transparency in licensing, weak license conditions, poor enforcement of license conditions, lack of verification of catch data to determine levels of misreporting and/or to determine levels of accuracy, poor implementation of national observer programmes, poor operation and enforcement of vessel monitoring systems (VMS), weak whole-of-government, lack of human capacity within whole-of-government, poor decision making process and systems, corruption, lack of strategic analytical capacity, lack of strategic planning and poor co-ordination and communication.

The study also identified:
• Lack of consultation with industry, community and NGO stakeholders;
• Poor co-ordination and engagement of relevant departments and/or lack of any whole-of-government process for developing national positions;
• Minimal capacity to analyse/determine national interest and develop strategies in context of regional fisheries management deliberations;
• Lack of negotiating skills;
• Lack of post-meeting evaluation and reports from delegations;
• Lack of fisheries development vision and whole-of-government strategy;
• Weak delegations to access agreement negotiations;
• Lack of transparency in access agreement negotiations;
• Lack of political engagement and will; and,
• Inadequate legal framework for fisheries management.

To deal with these problem areas, the study proposes 14 potential responses.
These include:
• Develop regional in-country programme to support preparation, negotiation and implementation of international fisheries instruments, conservation measures and access agreements;
• Review licensing arrangements throughout FFA members to identify best-practice licensing elements;
• Review vessel/fleet compliance with reporting and license conditions;
• Analyse effectiveness of compliance/enforcement amongst FFA members including a cost/benefit analysis and benchmarks/lessons learnt;
• Identify and develop regional networks of ‘best practice’ champions from FFA member national governments;
• Establish regional recruitment strategies to build regional ‘pools’ of talented individuals from which governments can draw from and within which individuals can grow careers;
• Review strategic planning capacity of FFA members and develop a training program in strategy development and strategic planning;
• Establish partnership outreach programmes with NGOs to inform and engage all relevant communities and stakeholders;
• Establish sub-regional fishing management collective authority;
• Increase transparency in access agreement negotiations and revenue;
• Build regional media expertise and knowledge of fisheries and marine issues;
• Develop information seminars for political leaders and senior officials;
• Increase whole-of-government engagement in fisheries; and
• Perform national institutional and governance reviews.

The study also gave FFA the thumbs up, saying those it consulted “noted the dramatic improvements in the capacity of FFA members” during the life of the organisation.

“Some FFA members now have the capacity to manage and develop their own fisheries resources and are prepared to assist other members,” the study said in its executive summary. They suggested that members were motivated to help each other because the national interest of each member was often tied in with the broader interest of other members in developing their fisheries resources and attracting on-shore investment”.

While much has been done, more remains. On its part, FFA this year began a programme for Forum Leaders to visit its Secretariat in Honiara. To-date, the Prime Minister of the Cooks, Jim Marurai, Niue’s Young Vivian and PNG’s Foreign Minister, Sam Abal, have so far taken part in a programme designed to give regional leaders the in-sight into the work of the secretariat.

They have also warned of the dire consequences for Pacific fisheries if tighter conservation and management measures are not taken to address over-fishing. This is threatening some of the region’s highly priced bigeye and yellowfin tuna.