'There is a growing realisation the islands could earn much more were they to take some decisive steps in several areas ranging from basing sophisticated fishing vehicles in their own islands to establishing downstream processing facilities’


The signing of the Third Implementing Arrangement of the Parties to the Nauru Agreement is a welcome instance of regional cooperation in the Pacific Islands.

As part of this arrangement signed in May this year, nine countries—the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, Kiribati, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu—agreed to take measures to conserve their valuable tuna stocks.

Tuna, probably one of the most commercially exploited fish type the world over, is the Pacific’s most sought-after resource. In fact the world’s appetite for fish has been so insatiable that alarm about fears of it being overfished have repeatedly been raised in the past few years.

For long the lion’s share of the commercial benefit from its trade has gone to distant waters fishing nations often far removed from the region. For the small Pacific Islands, which sit in the middle of some of the richest tuna zones in the world, they are no match for the financial muscle and navigational and technical prowess of the richer nations.

The only benefit they have been able to derive out of this highly lucrative multi-billion dollar activity is by way of access fees, more recently reaching sums of about US$60 million annually.

This is certainly substantial given the tiny economic scales of most of the islands nations. At the same time, there is a growing realisation that the islands could earn much more were they to take some decisive steps in several areas ranging from basing sophisticated fishing vehicles in their own islands to establishing downstream processing facilities.

The former would bring in benefits from the ownership of the vessels and a better leverage for negotiation of the catch from their own exclusive economic zones on which they would have better control, besides creating excellent employment opportunities for their seafaring citizens.

Establishing downstream processing facilities would open doors directly to the huge seven billion cans per year global processed tuna market. It is no secret that real profits lie in value addition that can come only from activities like downstreaming processing.

This is to speak nothing of the vast opportunities for employment and the flow-on effects on the islands economy that a product branded after a particular island could bring. An instance of this is what the Fiji Water brand has done to Fiji as a tourist destination in the United States.

None of this can ever be achieved by individual islands nations owing to their lack of economic muscle and their best and only effective way for achieving a greater commercial realisation from their natural resources way beyond the “access fees” that they are now having to be satisfied with is by banding together.

Instruments like the Nauru agreement and the successive implementation arrangements contained in it are a step in the right direction.

Regional organisations like the Honiara headquartered Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency have been catalysts in helping frame these arrangements and these can only strengthen the islands’ power of leverage over natural resources within their exclusive economic zones.

As well as the commercial aspects, what the islands have to remember at all times is that unlike the distant waters fishing nations whose gigantic purse seine vessels fish as much as 30 tonnes of tuna per day in Pacific waters, they live in the zone: indeed the zone is the home of the islands people.

While commercial fishing operations from distant waters fishing countries would be concerned only with maximising profits, as well as their own commercial interests the islands countries would have a few other equally important matters to be concerned about: the ecology to a large extent and culture and heritage to a somewhat lesser extent.

The Third Implementation Arrangement addresses these issues in that it incorporates clauses that prevent foreign purse seiners from fishing in pockets adjacent to the signatory nations’ exclusive economic zones as a condition of the licences given to them by these islands nations. It also prevents the use of technical gadgetry used to attract tuna, as it tends to attract juvenile tuna. Elimination of young tuna would have a telling effect on fish stocks culled as they would be before having a chance to propagate. The arrangement prevents these activities in the known tuna breeding months between July and September every year.

One of the tragedies of tuna fishing on an industrial scale by purse seiners is that several other fish species as well as aquatic mammals like dolphins and porpoises get caught up in nets and die wanton deaths before being dumped back into the oceans.

International regulations have somewhat addressed this menace but the practice continues in some pockets and would be positively revolting to several Pacific cultures that revere marine life, particularly of the mammalian species.

Equally importantly, the arrangement requires foreign purse seine vessels to take on board observers who will monitor fishing activity and report back on this to both the member nations and the Forum Fisheries Agency on a regular basis.

More than anything else, these measures that the Third Arrangement makes possible seeks to assert the rights of the signatory nations and is a great step in beginning to leverage their collective natural oceanic wealth in a firm and united manner. 

This would not have been possible to achieve had each individual islands nation tried to do it on its own. The progress of the agreement is a reassuring example of regionalism at work and how a united front can lend power to a cause fairly easily.

The long-term aim should be to leverage this natural wealth to an extent that a progressively larger economic benefit accrues to the islands nations. This could be achieved by making the business climate such that it would be far more profitable for the large overseas companies to partner with those based in the islands rather than going it alone as they do currently.

Indeed this is a long way to go but an excellent beginning has been made. And as the old saying goes, well begun is half done.