Islands Business - WE SAY: Tragic fallout of tuna fishing

NOVEMBER 2009 ISSUE

‘...illegal fishing by vessels from industrialised nations continues undeterred as it always has been. But a
number of incidents in the past month has given a clarion call to all illegal fishing operations in the region about the dire consequences if they persisted’

One of the more recent instances of meaningful regional cooperation has been the Third Implementing Arrangement of the Parties to the Nauru Agreement that was signed by nine countries—the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, Kiribati, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu—last year and the most recent meeting of which was held last month.
Regional co-operation initiatives have been further extended over the past year with the setting up of the Regional Fisheries Surveillance centre at the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) in Honiara aimed at supporting and complementing the regional monitoring, control and surveillance effort of the member countries and other surveillance providers such as the United States, France, New Zealand and Australia.
Co-operation initiatives have also led to measures to conserve one of the most prized natural resources in their individual and collective exclusive economic zones that have been the victim of a worryingly growing trend of illegal exploitation by industrialised countries from outside the Pacific Islands region: tuna.
Tuna, may well be one of the most commercially exploited fish type the world over, and is undoubtedly the Pacific Islands region’s most sought after resource.
The world’s appetite for tuna has been so insatiable that alarm about it being overfished has repeatedly been raised in the past few years. The major share of the commercial benefit from tuna trade has gone to distant nations often far removed from the region. This is simply because small Pacific Islands, which sit in the middle of some of the richest tuna zones in the world, have been no match for the financial strength and the navigational and technical advancements of the richer nations in the area of mass exploitation of fish stocks.
Fishing businesses from many of these nations often disregard internationally accepted conservation laws to say nothing of the sovereign laws of the nations, whose exclusive economic zones they fish in with shocking impunity.
Of some US$4 billion worth of tuna that is legally fished out of the Pacific Islands region every year, just a paltry US$60 million comes into the collective kitty of the Pacific Islands governments annually.
Estimates of how much more is lost because of illegal fishing vessels—especially by longline vessels and purse seiners which are capable of fishing as much as 30 tonnes a day—of a whopping US$9 billion with nothing accruing to the islands by way of monetary gain.
A tragic fallout of tuna fishing on an industrial scale by purse seiners is also 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.
The Nauru document therefore requires foreign purse seine vessels to take on board observers who will monitor fishing activities and report back to member nations and the Forum Fisheries Agency on a regular basis.
Unfortunately however, as incidents of the past few months have shown, illegal fishing by vessels from industrialised nations continues undeterred, as it always has been.
But a number of incidents in the past month has given a clarion call to all illegal fishing operations in the region about dire consequences if they persisted in unlawful activity.
This message has been successfully trumpeted across the fishing industry by raising the issue at international level by heavily fining an illegal vessel fishing in exclusive economic zones without license and publicising the event as widely in the regional and international media, shaming the perpetrators and forewarning others.

In September, the Kiribati High Court fined the owner and master of a foreign fishing vessel US$1 million for fishing in the country’s sprawling economic zone without a licence.
This was following a judgment handed down by the High Court on the prosecution by Kiribati’s Attorney-General for Chung Ching Fu and Sung Hui Ocean Company, master and owner respectively, of the Vanuatu flagged longline fishing vessel, Sung Hui.
In late August, Kiribati police officers aboard the Kiribati Pacific patrol boat Teanoai, which was part of a team of patrol boats participating in Operation Kurukuru, boarded the Sung Hui after being warned of its suspected illegal activities through the combined regional surveillance exercise of the Forum Fisheries Agency member countries, United States and France.
The court in its wisdom stopped short of forfeiting the vessel but in our opinion such an option should have been exercised to send an even stronger message to would be perpetrators as a deterrent. For the crime is grave enough to be not only compromising a country’s national sovereignty but also flouting a raft of other international laws.
In other parts of the South Pacific, Greenpeace activists are reported to have witnessed industrial fishing fleets from Asia and the United States including Taiwanese longliners illegally trans-shipping fish at sea, illegal fishing by a Japanese vessel in the Cook Islands’ waters and illegal use of fish aggregating devices during a ban on their use and misusing the flag of convenience to skirt fishing regulations.
In the Cook Islands, a Japanese vessel has been caught in the act with the Greenpeace ship Esperanza, encountering the Koyu Maru 3 hauling in its longline and catching tuna without a licence in Cook Islands waters. Activists have submitted pictorial evidence to the government and urged prosecution.
The Marshall Islands’ fisheries authorities have also reported illegal fishing by United States-based purse seiners but have been unable to prosecute the vessels because the government is yet to ratify laws that would enable them to do so.
The forthcoming Tuna Commission meeting in December presents a great opportunity to Pacific Islands nations to push for more conservation oriented moves with stringent penalties for not conforming to laws.
Some of the initiatives the countries must push for are halving the catch, banning fish aggregating devices, closing the high seas to unbridled purse seiners and banning trans-shipment at sea.
These must be made to include not just the countries’ exclusive economic zones but also the open ocean in the interests of conservation and preserving the balance of nature of marine life.
In the meanwhile, cooperative policing, help from committed activist organisations and strong deterrent measures such as stiff fines and impounding of craft and machinery must be pursued relentlessly by the governments of nations that are Parties to the Nauru Agreement.