WEDNESDAY, 28 AUGUST 2013, TOKYO, JAPAN: The PNA Secretariat has presented a fresh proposal to stop overfishing of bigeye tuna in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean. The proposal also ensures that Small Island Developing States (SIDS) do not bear a disproportionate burden of conservation.

The draft Conservation and Management Measure was presented to a critical working group of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission being held this week in Tokyo, Japan.

The draft measure calls for foreign longline fishing countries to reduce their bigeye catches by 30%, along with a freeze on foreign longline and purse seine fleets, and measures to reduce the use of FADs because of the bycatches, especially of juvenile bigeye tuna.

While skipjack tuna (commonly canned) is fished sustainably, advice from the WCPFC Scientific Committee is that fishing of the larger bigeye tuna (a sashimi fish) needs to be cut by 30% to bring fishing back to sustainable levels. In the PNA Secretariat proposal, the western high seas pockets will be closed and purse seine fishing in other high seas areas will be capped. FADs will be banned in the high seas by 2017, and foreign purse seine and longline fleet sizes will be frozen.

Dr Transform Aqorau, PNA Chief Executive Officer, said: “Our proposal is a solution to the problem we face in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean – overfishing of bigeye tuna. This is largely due to the high catch of foreign longline fishing vessels and the reliance of the industry on FADs, which leads to bycatch of undersized tunas. The advice from the PNA Secretariat is this – let’s cut FADs, put a freeze the number of large boats and gradually cut longline fishing to bring fishing of tuna back to sustainable levels.”

There is support for extending the FAD closure but this must come as part of a package that includes a reduction in longline catch and effort, high seas limits and FAD closures in the eastern high seas where bycatches of bigeye tuna are high.

The proposed rules are:

CUT LONGLINE BIGEYE CATCHES BY 30%

• A 30% cut in longline bigeye catch by 2017, to be achieved by staged 10% cuts

NO MORE NEW FISHING VESSELS FOR FOREIGN FLEETS

• No increase to the number of foreign purse seine vessels
• No increase to the number of distant water longline vessels

ADDITIONAL FAD MEASURES TO REDUCE BIGEYE BYCATCH

• No FAD fishing in the high seas by 2017
• Extend the FAD closure up to 5 months or equivalent reductions in FAD sets 
• A Fund will be created to compensate Small Island Developing States for the costs imposed on them by the FAD measures which benefit developed longline fleets, mainly operating outside SIDS waters

IMPOSE HIGH SEAS LIMITS

• Purse seine high seas fishing to be limited to 2010 levels

The proposal will be discussed in meetings leading up to the Annual Session of the WCPFC in December where a decision will be made on a new conservation and management measure on tuna.