Interview with PNA director Dr. Transform Aqorau
Written by Natalia Freitas, for Atuna.com
The Parties of the Nauru Agreement (PNA) countries have decided over the last weekend to close a huge high sea areas and major tuna fishing ground surrounding these countries, starting on January 1st 2011. Although the high seas are not under their jurisdiction, and outside their EEZ’s, it means that if purse seiners want to obtain licenses to fish in the tuna –rich EEZ’s of the PNA countries- they would lose their license if they would also fish in the restricted high sea areas. This restrictive measure will have a major effect on the future global tuna supply.
The fisheries ministers closed high seas area stretches to purse-seiner fishing vessels licensed to fish in their waters, from Palau and Papua New Guinea in the west to Kiribati in the east, Marshall Islands in the north to Tuvalu in the south. It covers all high seas areas from 10 degrees North latitude to 20 degrees South latitude and 170 degrees East to 150 degrees West in longitude, an area of no less than 4.555.000 square kilometers. This ocean surface in size is comparable to half of the United States surface!
The PNA director, Dr. Transform Aqorau, talks more about what lead to the decision and the consequences of it.
The PNA includes the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu. Collectively these countries are the owners of 25% of the world’s tuna supply.
Atuna.com: What was the main driver for the decision of closing the high sea areas in PNA waters?
Transform Aqorau: The main driver was the failure of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission to adopt appropriate measures for the conservation and management of bigeye and yellowfin tuna at its 4Th session in December 2007 in Guam. The Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) adopted a 3rd Implementing Arrangement under the Nauru Agreement which applied a package of measures including a closure of two high seas pockets to purse seining as shown in the attached map. This closure was later adopted with other PNA measures by the WCPFC and came into force from January 1, 2010. Subsequently, the WCPFC Scientific Committee has advised that additional measures are necessary to conserve bigeye tuna and has expressed concern at the possible effects of a transfer of purse seine effort from the two closed high seas pockets to other areas of high seas in the east. In the October 2009 Bikenibeu Declaration, PNA Fisheries Ministers “noted the serious impact on the bigeye stock from fishing by distant water longliners and purse seiners in the high seas and that the high seas continues to provide a safe haven for IUU fishing.†The Ministers agreed that “further work will be taken on closures of additional high seas areasâ€. In February this year, PNA Leaders agreed to close off additional high seas areas and hence last week’s decision was merely to make this decision operational.
Are the closures permanent?
The closures will be in place indefinitely. With the closure of the western pockets, some vessels may shift to fishing in the open high seas area in the east. This would increase bigeye mortality and require other measures such as extending the FAD closure or limiting overall purse seine effort to compensate for the additional bigeye mortality. The impact of these measures would generally fall on fishing in PNA EEZs. Closing these areas will also be a large step towards establishing sanctuaries for stocks of tuna and other species affected by fishing. These closures will therefore reinforce the very large efforts being made by the Parties for broader marine biodiversity conservation by their efforts through the Coral Triangle Initiative, the Micronesian Challenge, Kiribati’s Phoenix Islands Protected Area and other national marine protected areas.
While the WCPFC is making progress in controlling high seas fishing, the level of control in the high seas still lags behind the quality of control in the EEZs. Tight controls are being applied in EEZs, but vessels continue to fish in the high seas without any effective effort limit, and fishing states continue to oppose and obstruct control of high seas fishing. Most major fishing state CCMs are failing even in their most basic responsibility to provide timely data at the level of detail required for scientific purposes. In addition to the failure to effectively regulate fishing in the high seas, vessels continue to use the high seas as havens from which to operate illegally in the waters of PNA and other Pacific Island countries, further undermining the measures that PNA are taking. Closing the additional high seas areas to purse seiners as a condition of licensing in PNA EEZs will reduce the risk of damage done to the Parties management, conservation and protection efforts by fishing in nearby high seas areas
What are the economic benefits for PNA regarding the closures?
Closing the additional high seas areas will generate a range of economic benefits for the Parties including:
· Increased demand for access to PNA waters;
· A reduction in overall catches and supplies to global markets increasing the price and value of purse seine catches;
· A reduction in the severity of additional conservation measures; that will need to be applied in PNA waters
· Increased catch rates from healthier stocks;
What about the licenses sold to foreign nations to fish in PNA high sea waters? Will those countries be reimbursed?
The measure will come into effect from 1st of January 2011, so this is not an issue.
What are the main objectives PNA intends to reach with the closure?
Besides of has already been mentioned, the WCPFC Scientific Committee advised that additional measures are needed to conserve bigeye tuna and that the effectiveness of the current measures will be reduced if purse seine effort is transferred from the closed high seas pockets to high seas areas to the East, where bigeye tuna generally form a greater proportion of the purse-seine catch.
What about the ban on FAD fishing? How are discussions on that end?
There is a 3 months ban on FAD fishing already in place from 1 July to 30 September. There is some discussion to extend this ban.
