This year the Forum Fisheries Agency turns 25. This feature provides a brief overview of what they have been up to since their inception. In July 1979 the sixteen member countries of the South Pacific Forum created the Forum Fisheries Agency to help them manage and develop their living marine resources, and in particular the highly migratory species like the vast tuna stocks of the western and central Pacific Ocean.
FFA was established following UN-sponsored developments in the law of the sea in the 1970s, which recognized the sovereignty of coastal states over economic resources out to 200 miles offshore. Amid mounting pressure on global fish stocks and clear evidence of over-fishing in many coastal and ocean fisheries, FFA was conceived so that Pacific tuna resources could be permanently managed for the sustained economic benefit of its members. The island countries successfully resisted pressure by distant-water fishing nations for membership of the Agency, and FFA was established by international Convention in Honiara in late 1979.
Work at once got under way to collect and disseminate data, provide technical assistance and coordinate policy and legislative responses to increasing commercial pressure on the tuna fishery. The Agency quickly built a reputation for competent management, high professional standards, effective use of funds and prompt response to calls for assistance. This attracted additional political and financial support from the membership, particularly Australia and New Zealand, and from international donors. The European Union financed a purpose-built headquarters on a magnificent site.
Structure of the organization
Under the 1979 FFA Convention the Forum Fisheries Agency consists of the Forum Fisheries Committee (FFC) which is the governing body, and a Secretariat. The Agency presently has sixteen members, each of which is represented on the FFC 1. The Convention places the seat of the Agency at Honiara, and an Agreement between the Agency and the Government of Solomon Islands defines the diplomatic status of FFA.
The FFA Convention foresees the need for ‘additional international machinery’ to provide for cooperation in `conservation and optimum utilization’ of tuna resources, between `all coastal states and all states...harvesting...such resources’. The projected establishment of the Tuna Commission under the Western and Central Pacific Tuna Convention will bring this foresight to realization and extend it to the high seas.
FFC provides leadership, policy guidance and direction for the Agency and supervises the work of the Secretariat. FFC operates in a consultative manner, making decisions wherever possible by consensus. The Committee endeavors to be pro-active in foreseeing issues, promoting solidarity among its members and ensuring commitment of member countries to its decisions. The FFC Chair, which rotates among members, has a particularly important role in promoting regional solidarity and representing the collective views of the Member Countries.
The Secretariat, with a current establishment of 52 positions, is organized into six divisions, led by an executive management unit headed by the Director. Conditions of service for professional and support staff are guided by the harmonized conditions of the Council of Regional Organizations for the Pacific with adjustments for conditions in Honiara.
Achievements and Focus
Effective supervision by the member countries, a directorate with strong diplomatic skills and sense of accountability, and insistence on high performance standards from staff and consultants has taken FFA from strength to strength, earning international respect for the Agency and its membership. Solid achievements of the Agency’s first twenty years include fostering fisheries management expertise among its members, defining boundaries and resources, providing assistance negotiating multilateral treaties, setting up and operating a regional register of fishing vessels, creating a secure communications network and establishing a real-time vessel monitoring system based on satellite technology.
Building on those foundations, the Agency is now helping member countries to streamline and strengthen their laws and operations in surveillance and enforcement, to harmonize their access licensing and resource management regimes, and improve the economic benefits they receive from the tuna fishery. In a crucially important initiative FFA is taking a leading role in the international efforts to devise a management regime for the western and central Pacific region including high seas zones’ that lie outside and between the 200-mile zones of FFA’s member states and the Pacific rim countries. A just and sustainable outcome from these negotiations is a defining goal for FFA as it enters the new millennium.