Longline Tuna Transshipment On The Rise In The Pacificff

By Atuna

The report from the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) about its observer program for longline transshipments at sea has revealed that this activity has been increasing in the Pacific Ocean since the implementation of the program in 2009.

In 2009, 508 transshipments took place in the Pacific and up to September this year numbers were at 355. The difference may not seem much, but it is interesting when considering that the number of both observer requests and days at sea have been considerably higher in 2010 to date than in the corresponding period of 2009. For the whole last year, there were 30 requests for observers, which spent together a total of 1477 days at sea onboard the carriers authorized for transshipment by the IATTC. In 2010, there have been already 25 requests and 14000 days at sea. Interesting enough, from 2009’s transshipment in the Pacific only 15% were outside the Eastern Pacific Ocean (EPO) while in 2010 32% happened outside the EPO up to September.

China, Japan and Chinese Taipei are the countries with a larger number of transshipment registered, as shown on the table below.

 
When it comes to species, most of tuna transshipments by longliners in the Pacific relates to bigeye. Up to September this year, 15.384 MT of bigeye have been transshipped, around 30% less than the total amount in 2009.

The IATTC just ended its 81^st Meeting in which the staff presented some of the challenges of this program. For example, the Commission states that most of the specified tasks are being carried out by observers without the necessity of actually boarding the fishing vessels: “Observers are verifying whether the fishing vessel has an authorization to fish, whether any fish are left aboard the vessel after the transshipment, and whether any of the fish on board resulted from a transshipment”; which means that they remain onboard of the carriers.

However, the tasks of checking the functionality of VMS and the quantities of any fish remaining in the fishing vessel’s holds after transshipment require that the observer board the fishing vessel. According to the Commission this can be dangerous, as the transfer must take place via the crane (used to transfer fish from the fishing vessel) on board the carrier vessel, “occasionally under less than optimal at-sea conditions”. The Commission continued: “Further, in order to verify how much fish is left aboard the fishing vessels after the transshipment, observers may need to enter the vessel’s fish holds. This can be dangerous, and requires proper gear, and determining the quantity of fish is both difficult and time-consuming”.

During the meeting, the staff expected some guidance from the IATTC on whether observers should be required to board fishing vessels, in view of the potential risks to the observer’s safety during the boarding. AITTC’s resolution on transshipment clearly determines tasks the observers should fulfill in both carrier and longline vessels, and by this recent report it seems that only half of the job in being done.