MONDAY 2 DECEMBER 2013: As the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) opened today, the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) said foreign fishing nations need to take responsibility for overfishing of bigeye tuna.

“PNA wants foreign fishing nations to cut their longline fishing and share the burden of conservation at this week’s meeting in Cairns,” said PNA CEO Dr Transform Aqorau

The PNA manage the world’s largest sustainable tuna purse seine fishery. PNA is a global leader in tuna management and conservation – taking several world-first conservation measures including introducing 100% observer coverage, closing parts of the high seas, controlling FADs, tuna catch retention, in port transhipping and limiting fishing days for purse seine fishing (which catches skipjack tuna for canning). However, longline fishing, which catches bigeye tuna for sashimi, has contributed to overfishing.  Some foreign fishing nations are still arguing to keep their longline fishing levels the same. They have also been reluctant to recognize the so-called “burden of conservation” where PNA puts the bulk of the time and money into managing the tuna stocks without receiving just financial compensation for this effort.

“If we imagine this Tuna Commission is a canoe, its fair to say that PNA has sat at the front, paddled hard and propelled us towards our destination of no overfishing and stamping out illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing in our region. But we have some foreign fishing nations sitting in the back of the canoe, dragging their paddles in the water, or simply enjoying the cruise without paddling at all,” commented Aqorau. 

“Our message to the foreign fishing nations this week, is you better start pulling your weight  - cut your longline fishing and help us with the burden of conservation. Otherwise, we will leave you behind and go paddle the conservation canoe ourselves.”

This year’s WCPFC meeting is critical – the annual meeting during its last two sessions has failed to agree on a new conservation and management measure to apply to the Western and Central Pacific Ocean, an area where 50% of the world’s tuna is caught. This week the purpose of the meeting is to negotiate a new measure amongst its members – the Pacific Island countries, Asian nations, US and other foreign fishers such as the EU.