SATURDAY 31 MARCH, GUAM: The Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) said the latest meeting of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) did not go far enough towards conservation and management of tuna.

The meeting closed late Friday without any progress on PNA’s proposals to cut overfishing of bigeye tuna, a popular sashimi fish, to protect whale sharks, or to have a four month ban on Fish Aggregating Devices (FADS, which result in bycatches of young tuna and other species).

These rules will continue to apply in the PNA waters, as PNA rules, but not the entire Western and Central Pacific Ocean which is governed by WCPFC. The WCPFC also decided to weaken the conservation and management measure on bigeye tuna by reopening some high seas areas to fishing (although the PNA rule of fishing vessels that have licences to fish in PNA waters not being able to fish the high seas will still apply).

The current WCPFC conservation and management measure on tuna, which included several PNA proposals such as closing the high seas areas, 100% coverage of observers on purse seine fishing vessels and a three-month ban on Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs) will continue until the end of 2012 when WCPFC members will meet again to decide a new rule.

This “status quo” in the rules, ignores the scientific advice which says further action beyond the current rules is needed to stop overfishing of bigeye tuna.

“This meeting did not go far enough for conservation and management of tuna,” said PNA Chair Dr Transform Aqorau. “We should have agreed to a new set of rules for tuna fishing, instead we agreed to continue the existing measure and made a few small changes. The WCPFC also decided to reopen one high seas area, which was disappointing to the PNA that has always championed closing the high seas to limit fishing effort, scope for illegal fishing and increase revenue to Pacific countries. On the other hand, some of the small changes made at this meeting are positive – the WCPFC agreed to limits on skipjack tuna catch (at 2010 levels) so non PNA countries will now have limits on how much skipjack tuna they can fish. While there were no changes on rules about FADs, some of the Asian nations did commit to reducing FADs in the 9 months of the year when there is no WCPFC ban on FADs.”

Dr Aqorau added that the PNA were disappointed that the Tuna Commission members had not supported their proposed ban on setting nets around whale sharks but encouraged that Japan agreed to revisit the issue in December. The Commission did agree to ban setting on marine mammals and to conserve oceanic whitetip sharks.

Dr Aqorau said: "When large scale commercial fishing interests drive governments at this Tuna Commission it is difficult to make any progress towards conservation and management of tuna. We have clearly seen this last week at the latest Tuna Commission meeting but all is not lost. The PNA is hopeful a new conservation and management measure can be agreed in December. Whatever happens, PNA countries will continue to strengthen conservation and management within our own waters. We owe it to future generations of Pacific Islanders who rely on tuna and other sea creatures to secure their economic livelihoods and food security."