Preservation crucial for islands

Robert Keith-Reid
Two of the Western Pacific's four most commercially important tuna species are probably being overfished and will certainly be within five years if present fishing rates continue, scientists of the Western and Central Pacific Tuna Commission have warned.

They say that yellowfin has now joined bigeye tuna as an endangered species and that the preservation of both is of "crucial economic importance" to small Pacific Islands states that count tuna as their sole economic resource.

In a move that will ease some of the fishing pressure on tuna, Taiwan has announced that in compliance with a United Nations call for a 20-30% reduction in the sizes of fishing fleets, it will scrap 120 large longliners by the end of 2006.

The United Nations says the world operates too many fishing boats and that overfishing is destroying fishing grounds in the Atlantic, Mediterranean Sea and other classic fishing areas.

Pacific fisheries agency scientists put bigeye tuna on the endangered list in the late 1990. As late as 2003 they rated yellowfin as being "likely to be nearing full exploitation".

The Tuna Commission's scientific committee, in a statement on a stock review conference held in New Caledonia last month, said fishing at present levels, mainly by the purse seine and domestic fleets of the Philippines and Indonesia, would diminish bigeye and yellowfin stocks "to the extent that within five years they will be overfished".

Assessments for the two other important tuna commercial species, skipjack and albacore, were "more optimistic" indicating the present catch rates were sustainable.

According to the latest available figures in 2003, the Western Pacific tuna fishery landed an estimated 1,972,665 tonnes of tuna worth about US$2 billion. This was 72% of the entire Pacific tuna catch and about 50% of the world total.

Skipjack accounted for 64% of the Western Pacific catch, yellowfin 24%, bigeye 5% and albacore 7%. In December, the Tuna Commission, launched last year with headquarters at Pohnpei, will hold its annual session at which recommendations for reducing fishing for bigeye and yellowfin will be discussed. The outcome of the meeting, says the scientific committee, will be the "first major challenge" for preserving the security of the Pacific's tuna stocks.

Andrew Wright, who took up his five-year appointment as director of the Tuna Commission on October 10, says the protection of bigeye and yellowfin tuna is a priority. The aim is to apply conservation policies fair to all Tuna Commission countries, he says.

These include all members of the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency and Asian fishing countries, including Korea, China, Indonesia and Japan.

Another issue at the December meeting will be the setting up of a policy for greatly cutting down the rates at which fishing fleets are destroying turtles, seabirds and sharks as "bycatch", while fishing with nets or longlines for tuna.

Wright began his regional fisheries career in Papua New Guinea in 1978 and worked later for the Forum Fisheries Agency and South Pacific Regional Environment Programme.

On November 3, 1991, a bigeye tuna was caught by an Australian longline vessel in the Coral Sea, off the north-east coast of Australia, tagged and returned to sea.

Last September, it was caught again only 92 sea miles from its first point of capture. Since 1991, it has grown from a length of 65 centimetres and about five kilogrammes to 164 centimetres and about 80 kilogrammes.

According to the Pacific Community's Oceanic Fisheries Programme (OFP), the fish's "long time at liberty is clearly a world record for this tuna species and confirms the longevity of bigeye relative to most other tunas."

The fish was estimated to be around 15 years old. The OFP has tagged tuna since the 1970s. During 1989-1992, it has tagged more than 150,000 with a recapture rate of 13%.

Data from tagging helps with the monitoring of the health of tuna stocks. Since tuna are highly migratory, it is difficult to keep track of them and their health.

The high cost and logistics of tagging means the OFP has been able to accomplish it only every 10 to 15 years. With the new Tuna Commission and other fisheries agencies, OFP is planning to tag tuna with small electronic tags that will daily report on their location and the depths at which they swim. This will yield new insights into a remarkable species of fish, the OFP says.