Source: Malaya Business Insight
To resurrect its declining tuna industry, the Philippines will oppose an extension of a ban on tuna fishing in the Western Pacific.
A ban on purse seine fishing to allow tuna stocks to replenish in the Pacific high seas imposed by the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) ends this year.
The Department of Agriculture (DA) will recommend this December, during a meeting of the WCPFC in Palau, that it is time to resume commercial tuna fishing.
It will argue that some tuna species, especially the yellowfin that migrate to Philippine waters, are not overfished.
The WCPFC imposed the ban in 2010 to allow tuna and other marine species to spawn and increase in one of the world’s major fishing grounds.
In August, the Seventh Regular Session of the WCPFC Scientific Committee met in Pohnpei, Micronesia, and concluded that the bigeye, yellowfin, skipjack and South Pacific albacore are not over fished, although for bigeye overfishing is occurring and the stock is approaching an overfished state.
It recommended that for bigeye tuna, there should be a minimum of a 32 percent reduction in fishing mortality from the average levels for 2006–2009 to return the fishing mortality rate to acceptable levels.
Overfishing, according to the Scientific Committee, is not occurring for yellowfin, skipjack and South Pacific albacore.
The WCPFC was established by the Convention for the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean.
The Convention, which applies to the waters of the Pacific Ocean, ensures the long-term conservation and sustainable use of the highly migratory fish stocks of the Western and Central Pacific Ocean.
It seeks to address problems in the management of high seas fisheries resulting from unregulated fishing, over-capitalization, excessive fleet capacity, vessel re-flagging to escape controls, insufficiently selective gear, unreliable databases, and insufficient multilateral cooperation in respect to conservation and management of highly migratory fish stocks.
Last month, at a WCPFC Scientific Committee meeting in Hawaii, the DA recommended that Philippine-based fresh and ice-chilled fishing vessels should be permitted to operate inside what it proposed to be a Special Management Area in High Seas Pocket 1.
It cited a Scientific Committee report that concluded yellowfin tuna was not overfished.
The Philippines wants to fish for tuna in the high seas again because the ban in the Western Pacific is hurting the tuna industry.
Canned tuna exports has dropped by 8 percent in 2010 compared to the previous year.
Canned tuna comprised 70 percent of the $359 million tuna exports last year (the rest were fresh, chilled or frozen).
To ease industry pains, the DA recently reduced by 3 percent of export value the fees for export/re-export permits – an amount equivalent to P1,650 or 0.2 percent of raw fish material.
The move is expected to bring down the price of tuna products and make it competitive in the international market.
The tuna industry, which employs 120,000 workers, contributes 12 percent to total fish production and earning $280 million in annual exports.
The Philippines ranks 7th among the top tuna producing countries in the world, both in terms of fresh, frozen and canned tuna.
In 2003, the Philippines was the world’s fourth largest producer of tuna and tuna-like species – after China, Japan and Indonesia. In the Western Central Pacific region, it ranks a close second to Indonesia in tuna production, accounting for 22 per cent of the total catch.
"The Philippine position is that it is time to lift the ban on tuna fishing in the Western Pacific," said Fatma Idris, Davao Regional Director of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources.
The region includes the Davao Fish Port Complex in Toril, Davao City, the country’s only duty-free transhipment point where tuna is shipped by jet via Manila to other countries.
"Because tuna landings have decreased, the transhipments from Toril has gone down," she told Malaya Business Insight.
Idris said the Philippines does not use fishing gears that contribute to tuna stocks decline and should not suffer from the WCPFC policy. "The ban has meant smaller fishing grounds leading to less tuna landings," she said.
Even before the fishing ban in the Pacific, the Philippines in 2008 prohibited the use of tuna purse seine nets with mesh sizes smaller than 3.5 inches (8.89 centimeters) at the bag or bunt portion. The ban, in effect, prohibited trade in small-size tuna or young tuna weighing less than 500 grams each.
The ban includes yellow fin tuna, big eye tuna and skipjack tuna.
Purse seine fishing involves a rectangular net that surrounds a school of tuna. It is hauled up when the lower section is closed by pulling the rope or cable passed through purse rings at the net bottom.
Critics of overfishing say the major tuna producers in Philippine waters are handliners and purse-seiners.
As handliners target adult yellowfin in the deeper column of the water, the purseseiners (and ring-nets) gather mostly juvenile tuna (mostly yellowfin and skipjack) that aggregate near the surface of the water. Studies show that more than 90 per cent of the catch of commercial fishers in Southern Mindanao is less than 12 months old.
Tuna caught by purse-seine vessels are usually smaller in size and are, therefore, not suited for export as fresh/frozen/chilled product. Those that weigh 300 grams and above go to the tuna canneries, while those weighing less than 300 grams are sold to the domestic market.
The local tuna industry is highly concentrated in General Santos City which is close to the traditional tuna fishing grounds in the Mindanao Sea, southern Sulu Sea, Moro Gulf and Celebes Sea.
However, tuna resources are distributed throughout the country, especially in the South China Sea. Local tuna fishers also go to fishing grounds in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands in the Pacific.
Tuna production accelerated rapidly starting in 2002, primarily from the output of commercial fishers.
The major tuna species in the Philippines are the skipjack tuna, yellowfin tuna and bigeye tuna, Eastern little tuna and frigate tuna.
Skipjack, yellowfin, bigeye, northern bluefin and albacore are predominant in deep waters beyond the country’s continental shelf. These are recognized as part of the regional stocks of the Western Central Pacific Ocean.