By Atuna.com
The supply of MSC certified skipjack tuna from PNA waters has yet to reach the market and boat owners operating in the region are largely being blamed – but who exactly are these fishermen?
Maurice Brownjohn, commercial manager for the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA), says the vast majority of purse seine vessels in PNA waters are foreign.
The PNA does not own vessels, he says, despite a misconception that exists within some organizations.
“In fact only about 22 purse seiners in the PNA region are even flagged to PNA countries. This is out of about 267 purse seiners licensed annually to fish in PNA waters in 2012,†says Brownjohn.
This means foreign owned and flagged fleets have an overwhelming presence – 92% – in the PNA’s free school purse seine skipjack fishery, which was certified as sustainable against the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) eco-label nearly a year ago. It are these 245 foreign owned and flagged vessels, along with the 22 flagged to the PNA nations that will need to provide the MSC certified skipjack catch to the canneries and the global canned tuna markets.
Boat owners in the region have yet to complete a successful trial trip that meets MSC principles and the fishery as a result has not attained its MSC Chain of Custody (COC) certification. COC is necessary to guarantee the certified sustainable skipjack tuna is caught on free schools and without fish-aggregating devices (FADs) and is kept separate from non-certified catch throughout the entire supply chain.
In PNA waters, which produce half of the global skipjack catch, there are about a dozen “distant water fishing nations†present, including the U.S.A., Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Philippines, Vanuatu, China, Ecuador, Spain, El Salvador, and New Zealand. The fleets of these countries belong to companies such as Korea’s Dongwon Industries, Philippines’ Frabelle Fishing Corporation, Ecuador’s Conservas Isabel Ecuatoriana SA, Spain’s Albacora, and El Salvador’s Calvopesca El Salvador SA.
Papua New Guinea – one of the eight Pacific island countries that make up the PNA – is a good case to examine the PNA’s foreign fleet composition. The country’s waters are a rich source of skipjack tuna, accounting for about 9% of the Western and Central Pacific Ocean’s total skipjack supply. In 2011, it had 216 purse seine vessels fishing in its waters and 95% were foreign flagged vessels (167 foreign vessels fishing under access arrangements and 39 PNG chartered vessels), according to its 2012 annual report to the regional fisheries management organization. These foreign vessels also caught the majority (84%) of the country’s skipjack, catching 97,387 tons, while the 10 PNG flagged vessels caught 18,365 tons.
Apart from the fishing industry, Brownjohn says major tuna brands and processors do have an important part to play in helping MSC certified tuna reach the marketplace.
Most of the participating members of the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF), for instance, are directly connected to the fleets through their parent companies.
“ISSF is said to be an association of processors rather than representing the boats which in many cases their members also own. They can do an important role in pushing processors to demand MSC tuna from their fleets and the fleets that supply them, to supply the global demand,†says Brownjohn.
With the PNA’s sustainable tuna supply at a standstill, retailers and distributors are beginning to grow impatient. Last week, the Netherlands-based frozen and fresh fish distributor, Anova Seafood, said there is large interest from European retailers for the MSC skipjack, and in a public letter, the company urged boat owners in PNA waters to start landing the sustainable tuna.
