Original story by Jemima Garrett for Pacific Beat at Australia Network News
The world’s biggest tuna company has called for government action to manage tuna stocks and promote sustainable fishing in the Pacific.
Southern bluefin tuna swim in the open ocean off Australia, January 2004. Photo: Kerstin Fritsches, AAP
Industry groups met at the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) Tuna conference in the Solomon Islands to look at how to broaden the tuna investment base in the region.
The FFA is a regional organisation developed to help Pacific countries control and develop their tuna fisheries.
Tri Marine International Managing Director Phil Roberts told Radio Australia’s Pacific Beat there was a consensus among industry groups for a limit on fishing effort in the Pacific to protect fish stocks.
Tri Marine International is the world’s biggest tuna company, and trades around $1 billion worth of tuna a year through its Singapore office.
Mr Roberts criticised the FFA’s Vessel Day Monitoring scheme in promoting sustainability, saying the amount of registered fishing vessels had increased from 200 to 290 in the last five years.
The Vessel Day Scheme (VDS) is a system where vessel owners can purchase and trade fishing days at sea in places subject to the Parties to the Nauru (PNA) Agreement.
“As a means of limiting (fishing) effort the vessel day scheme has not been efficient,” Mr Roberts said.
PNA controls the world’s largest sustainable tuna purse seine fishery, with its members including the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu.
Mr Roberts called on the the PNA to take action.
“PNA have authority and sovereign rights over their zones. They are in a extraordinarily powerful position to control this fishery,” he said.
“We’re all hoping they will eventually force a limit.”
Mr Roberts said Tri Marine is expanding its more environmentally friendly pole and line fishing and fishing that avoids the use of Fish Aggregating Devices (FADS).
FAD’s are buoys, floats or other man-made objects used to attract fish, and have been criticised by environmentalists for contributing to overfishing.
“Customers are asking for FAD free fish and our role as supplier is to supply what the customer wants,” Mr Roberts said.
“We’d rather be ahead of the wave than trying to catch up.”
Mr Roberts said the market for sustainable tuna was growing.
“Consumers everywhere are more and more attuned to the issues around sustainability and the practices used in catching.”
FFA’s 17 Pacific Island members are Australia, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.
The FFA Tuna forum will be held between 18 to 20 September.
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