Joe Hamby Explains Tuna Strategy
By Atuna.com
Good news for Island communities situated in the South Pacific Ocean: the trend to support the livelihood of local tuna sectors seems to be gaining more momentum. Most recently, Tri-Marine – one of the world’s largest tuna suppliers – announced its strategy to fish and process locally in American Samoa.
“If you’re a consumer of tuna and you know that this tuna is caught in this beautiful South Pacific, and you know that it’s processed in the American Samoa canneries, there should be some appreciation that this fish is caught in these wonderful waters, processed in this culture and giving value to this culture and the economy and helping to sustain the people of American Samoa,†said Joe Hamby, Tri-Marine’s managing director, in a radio interview recently.
The company owns the Samoa Tuna Processors cannery, a facility in Atu’u that is currently being rebuilt, and plans to make American Samoa the South Pacific hub for tuna processing. According to Hamby, the territory is ideal because it has the land, human and infrastructural resources.
Tri-Marine’s latest business plan follows on the heels of a similar initiative created by eight island nations in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean. The eight countries – known as the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) – provide a quarter of the global tuna supply and are planning to market their Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certified free school skipjack tuna globally under the co-brand, Pacifical. Besides recognizing the importance of sustainable fishing, the Pacifical co-brand values its local people and culture, and aims to create local processing jobs so the communities can get a fair share of the economic return for their tuna resources.
The PNA member countries are Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu. American Samoa borders the waters of these PNA countries.
The Samoa Tuna Processors factory is entering its second phase of construction, and Pacifical tuna has yet to hit the marketplace.