Fisheries

TASMANIA, Australia (RADIO AUSTRALIA) --- A new study by Australia's peak scientific body the CSIRO shows that fish around the world are shrinking in size.

AUCKLAND, New Zealand (FAIRFAX NZ) -- An attempt in Auckland to save one of the world's last great fisheries is on the verge of failing, environmentalists claim.

MSC certification has landed Fiji Albacore Tuna on the European stage: In a world-first, international seafood supplier Anova Seafood brings the first MSC labeled tuna from Fiji to Europe.

NOUMEA, New Caledonia --Fisheries representatives reacted with dismay to the news that training programmes in Pacific fisheries may be axed.

Current US tuna treaty negotiations have stalled because Pacific Islands Parties and the United States have failed to agree on various elements of a new treaty. The Pacific Islands Parties, however, have extended to the US a temporary treaty to cater for extended talks.

BANGKOK, Thailand --- Sharks have become the underdog of the oceans. They reproduce slowly and are being targeted for their fins and caught accidentally in the hunt for fish

HONIARA, Solomon Islands (FAIRFAX NZ) ---- The continuing slaughter of dolphins in the Solomon Islands is set to hit the troubled nation's struggling tourism industry.

After years of effort to get Fiji tuna caught using longline fishing method to carry MSC certification, the first taste for European consumers carrying the coveted label will hit their stores in June. This follows the launch of the Fiji albacore tuna range by global seafood supplier Anova Seafood at ...

The 8th Pacific Heads of Fisheries Meeting is taking place March 4-8 in New Caledonia. The meeting, convened by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), brings together heads of fisheries departments from Pacific Islands countries and territories (PICTs) to discuss not only the work of SPC’s Fisheries, Aquaculture and ...

Environmental and other marine advocacy groups criticised the Pacific’s regional fisheries management organisation for not adopting a tougher stance on conservation at its annual meeting in December. Despite this criticism, CEO of the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) said the results “are not as bad as they were made ...

Although last year produced agreement about how much money will be paid for US vessels to fish in the Pacific, there are still many hurdles to leap before a new US Pacific tuna treaty arrangement can be approved, say fisheries officials in the Marshall Islands.

Tuvalu’s recent request to the Western Central Pacific Fisheries Commission to be exempted from a ban on the use of Fishing Aggregate Devices (FADs) could have been based on their own economic reasoning but it once again rear the ugly head of individual interests as opposed to a united front ...

As the European Union (EU) takes Fiji and Vanuatu to task for having weak laws to tackle illegal fishing, international environmental campaigner Greenpeace has urged the EU to also set a good example and support local fish conservation efforts while fishing in the Pacific.

‘…the elephant in the room is the Asian fishing conglomerates, notably China. Tiny, powerless islands governments are at the mercy of the Chinese juggernaut when it comes to exploitation of marine resources in their own sovereign territorial waters. Unlike powerful western nations like the United States, the small Pacific islands ...

A red alert is on for two of Fiji’s major export commodities—fish, which earns around $200 million in foreign exchange annually—and sugar, which rakes in around $100 million a year.

One issue with negotiating multilateral agreements is that whilst negotiating as a bloc has its advantages because it achieves economies of scale which would otherwise not be there for Smaller Islands States, it also has the disadvantage of having to compromise often at the lowest common denominator. This is because ...

In August 2012, for the purposes of diversifying coastal fishery activities, the SPC Nearshore Fisheries Development Section, in conjunction with the New Caledonia Merchant Navy and Sea Fishery Department (SMMPM) and the ZoNéCo Programme, using funding from the French Development Agency (AFD), carried out a deep-sea fishing trip in waters ...

A recent article in ISLANDS BUSINESS focused on the lack of development in the Western and Central Pacific in islands under the care of the United States Compact of Free Association (COFA).

The Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) has hit several hurdles in an aggressive push to take control of a fishing industry long dominated by distant water fishing interests.

New foreign investments in fisheries could gradually leapfrog Oceania’s oldest export industry to reclaim the number one export earner status again ahead of tourism.

Disappointment was the general consensus of the Pacific group of the African Caribbean Pacific countries who flew all the way to Brussels last month to be only told the European Union was not ready to progress the negotiation of their Economic Partnership Agreement.

Unite for tuna. That's the plea of outgoing Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) Director General, Su'a Tanielu, as he was wrapping up his final assignments for the region.

A key fisheries body in the Pacific has criticized the European Union for a recently signed fisheries agreement that does not require EU fishing vessels to abide by already established fisheries management requirements in the region.

The Pacific Islands are facing what could be the end of their longest surviving commercial export fishery.

An important bargaining chip for the Pacific Islands parties has been taken out of the US/Pacific fishing treaty talks.

Balancing the careful development of a deep sea mineral industry and environmental concerns can be a veritable minefield for PACP governments.

It’s no secret that the region’s fisheries resources – an important source of food and export revenues for Pacific Island countries – are under considerable strain.

This year PNA (Parties to the Nauru Agreement) celebrates 30 years of sub-regional co-operative fisheries management.

Dirty, ugly tuna politics reared its ugly head again at the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) meeting in Guam in March.

FFA has 17 member countries and is based in Honiara. The current head, Samoa’s Tanielu Su’a’s term is coming to an end (serving his second three-year term) and the Forum Fisheries Committee will make a decision on who takes over from him when they meet in Tonga on May 18. ...

The number of days and how much the United States is willing to pay will be the deal breaker in the current negotiations for a successor agreement to the US tuna treaty.

As the Pacific races to seal a deal for its tuna stocks, Papua New Guinea has been able to secure a temporary payment of $45 million from the United States for the Pacific Islands Parties as a condition for revoking the termination of the US treaty.

The beauty of the current US negotiations with the Pacific islands is that the public is completely aware of the issues that separate the Pacific and the USA in a renewal of this quarter century old agreement.

This year will be a crucial year for fisheries as islands nations would need to finalise their fishing treaty with the United States as well as firm up on a regional strategy on fisheries for the equally important economic partnership agreement (EPA) negotiations with the European Union.

Pacific nations are under a good deal of pressure to sustain their fish resources and maintain a vital source of food. Now climate change poses a fresh challenge.

Free school skipjack tuna caught in waters of eight Pacific countries grouped under the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) will soon carry the prized Marine Steward Council certification (MSC), following a final decision made in London last month by an independent adjudicator in the arbitration leg of the certification ...

Pacific Islands Parties and the United States will go for another round of negotiations on January 12 for a successor fish agreement after the US rejected the Pacific’s proposal.

There are two main ways in which people’s actions can lead to the collapse of reef fish stocks. The most well known is overfishing—catching too many fish. But human activity can also impact on reef fish stocks by preventing fish from spawning.