August 27, 2019 — Japan is expected to run into a lot of resistance to its proposed expansion of Pacific bluefin tuna catch quotas at the upcoming meeting of the Northern Committee of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC), in Portland, Oregon, reports the Japanese wire service Jiji Press.
The four-day meeting starts on Sept. 3.
June 24, 2019 — The first ever discussions between the EU and the 17 members of the Forum Fishery Agency (FFA) regarding the management of marine resources took place in Pohnpei, in the Federated States of Micronesia on June 21.
The two-day meeting was arranged under the framework of the Pacific-European Union Marine Partnership program (PEUMP), a four-year initiative that aims to reduce levels of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in the region, as well as find trade negotiations to remove the need for fishery subsidies.
FFA director general, Manu Tupou-Roosen said: “This policy dialogue is important because it is an opportunity for FFA members and the EU to have an in-depth discussion on key issues relating to the sustainable management of tuna in our region, its importance for Pacific island countries, and our cooperation in the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission to tackle issues like IUU fishing.”
June 24, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee made recommendations regarding bigeye tuna catch limits and allocation amounts for the U.S. Participating Territories for the fishing years 2020 to 2023 when it met last week in Honolulu.
For bigeye tuna, the SSC recommended no catch limit be set for longline-caught bigeye tuna in the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) convention area from 2020 to 2023 for any U.S. Pacific territory. It also recommended that each territory be allowed to allocate up to 2,000 metric tons (mt) to federally permitted Hawai’i longline vessels.
The SSC concluded its three-day meeting and will make these and other recommendations to the Council at its 178th meeting in Honolulu this week, June 25-27.
The Commission is an international fishery management organization that develops quotas and other management measures for tuna fisheries in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean. Under WCPFC, Small Island Developing States and Participating Territories (such as the three U.S. territories in the Pacific: American Samoa, Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands) do not have longline-caught bigeye quotas. However, under an amendment to the Council’s Pelagic Fishery Ecosystem Plan, the National Marine Fisheries Service has the authority to specify annual catch and allocation limits for the U.S. Territories. In recent years, each U.S. territory had a 2,000 mt limit and authority to allocate up to 1,000 mt.
Prior to making its decision, the SSC reviewed stock projections through 2045, which showed that catch limit and allocation scenarios of up to 3,000 mt per Territory were not significant enough to cause the stock to go over any limit reference points adopted by the WCPFC.
Other outcomes of the SSC meeting included the following:
Hawaiʻi Kona Crab: Based on updated information from a 2018 benchmark stock assessment and other reports, the SSC set the acceptable biological catch (ABC) for the main Hawaiian Islands Kona crab commercial fishery at 30,802 pounds for 2020 to 2023. This decision accounted for the scientific uncertainties with an estimated risk of overfishing of 38 percent. The Council will utilize the ABC to specify the annual catch limit for the stock.
Shifting Distributions and Changing Productivity: A NMFS Office of Science and Technology representative reported on the major challenges and potential solutions in addressing both shifts in stock distributions as well as changing stock and ecosystem productivity. The presentation identified six steps to account for and respond to climate impacts on fisheries and recommended ways to account or prepare for distribution and productivity shifts. These recommendations are intended to serve as a guide for each region in the development of fishery management actions.
SSC member Ray Hilborn noted, “… where you close [fisheries] now is not where the species are going to be in 20 years.” He also pointed out that non-governmental organizations strongly push for permanently closed areas rather than considering adaptive spatial management.
Spatial Management: A working group of the SSC reported on its efforts to define benefits and limitations to spatial management actions relative to pertinent regional fishery issues and management objectives. The working group discussed the development of a workshop on “Spatial Management of Blue Water Ecosystems” with a broad spectrum of participants to be held in 2019 or 2020. The SSC recommended tht the Council endorse the workshop with the themes of 1) spatial management objectives and performance metrics; 2) alternative approaches to spatial management; 3) evaluation and monitoring; and 4) policy and outreach approaches to spatial management.
The Council will consider these and other SSC recommendations when it meets this week in Honolulu. Action items on the Council agenda include the U.S. Territory bigeye tuna catch and allocation limits; catch limits and options for specifying annual catch limits for main Hawaiian Islands Kona crab; managing loggerhead and leatherback sea turtle interactions in the Hawai’i-based shallow-set longline fishery; and a Hawai’i Archipelago Fishery Ecosystem Plan amendment to precious coral essential fish habitat. The Council will also have a presentation from Global Fishing Watch, an organization that uses technology to visualize, track and share data about global fishing activity.
This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.
June 14, 2019 — High levels of tuna catches in the western, central, and eastern regions of the Pacific Ocean in May and June have led to supply bottlenecks and a tricky time for the logistics chain, according to an internal memo from the World Tuna Purse Seine Organisation (WTPO).
The note, seen by Undercurrent News, notes “above average” catching “from May this year to the first week of June 2019”. Over the same period, Atlantic catches have been average and Indian Ocean landings poor, it said.
At the end of May Undercurrent reported skipjack tuna prices in key processing hubs such as Thailand and Ecuador were expected to weaken in June, signaling the downtrend started in May might continue into the summer months.
Higher Chinese offering in key markets and lower demand in the Middle East were mentioned as the key bearish drivers, while some sources in Ecuador pointed out that price instability is hindering commissioning of new fishing vessels in Latin America.
High catch levels in May have seen a lack of carrier space at sea in the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) region, as well as a lack of cold storage space in ports, resulting in slow unloading and turnaround of reefer carriers, said WTPO.
January 29, 2019 — The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Mellon is in the South Pacific, conducting the kind of law enforcement patrol that isn’t often possible: stopping other nations’ ships on the high seas to ensure compliance with an international treaty.
In the ordinary course of business, a suspect vessel cannot be inspected and searched in international waters unless it either is stateless or the boarding party has the permission of the vessel’s flag state. However, the 43 nations of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) have pre-authorized law enforcement units from 13 enforcer nations to board and inspect any WCPFC member’s vessels for compliance with fisheries rules. Any violations found are recorded and reported to the Commission, which notifies the suspect vessel’s flag state.
December 18, 2018 — Pacific Islands fisheries leaders expressed satisfaction with the actions taken by the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) to support sustainability of the fishery and minimum labor standards for fishing crews, according to an update from the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA).
A compromise worked out late on Dec. 14 allowed for an extension of provisions in the “Tropical Tuna Measure” that is essential to sustainable management of the tuna fishery, said Forum Fisheries Agency director general, Manu Tupou-Roosen, and PNA CEO Ludwig Kumoru.
This includes the continuation of provisions for a three-month prohibition on use of fish aggregating devices (FADs) by purse seiners in exclusive economic zones and high seas areas between from July 1-Sept. 30, and an additional two-month prohibition on FAD use on the high seas.
December 11, 2018 — Two groups that represent the interests of Pacific island nations would like a United Nations council that regulates fishing in the region to adopt international minimum standards for vessels.
The groups, the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) and the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA), want the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission to adopt the standards resolution at the commission’s meeting next week in Honolulu, the capital city of the US state of Hawaii.
The FAA said in a press release that minimum labor standards would “enhance economic benefits” to vessel crewmembers from small island states.
“We want to promote enhanced employment opportunities for our members, but we must ensure that the vessels operating in our region are safe working platforms for our people, with fair terms and conditions of employment,” said Manu Tupou-Roosen, the FFA’s director general. “This why we have all agreed on this proposed crewing labor standard.”
Members of the PNA and the FAA are targeting a goal of 33,000 jobs in the fishing industry for Pacific Islanders by 2023, up from 23,000 currently. Around half of all current jobs are held by women in the tuna sector but the groups hope to boost islanders’ employment aboard vessels, particularly longliners.
In a separate release, the FFA said its members were cracking down on Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean “like never before”.
“We have implemented a management system for the purse seiners through the vessel day scheme that has greatly reduced opportunities for IUU activity in this fishery,” Ludwig Kumoru, the PNA’s CEO said. “Our requirement of 100 percent fisheries observer coverage on purse seiners and other measures is a big deterrent to illegal fishing.”
December 11, 2018 — Pacific island nations have vowed to oppose US efforts to increase its catch limit in the world’s largest tuna fishery, saying the proposal does nothing to improve sustainable fishing.
The United States is expected to try to increase its quota for bigeye tuna at a meeting of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) taking place in Honolulu this week.
The meeting brings together 26 nations to determine fishing policy in the Pacific, which accounts for almost 60 percent of the global tuna catch, worth about $6.0 billion annually.
It is mostly made up of small island nations but also includes so-called “distant-water nations” that come from as far afield as Europe, China, the United States, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan to fish Pacific tuna.
Island nations regularly accuse them of being reluctant to curb the lucrative industry in the interests of long-term conservation.
President Donald Trump’s administration will push this year to catch more bigeye—one of the most sought after species of tuna for sashimi—as a reward for complying with the commission’s monitoring rules.
All fishing fleets are supposed to carry independent fisheries observers on at least five percent of their boats as means of ensuring quotas are not exceeded and to collect accurate data.
However, most nations aside from the United States ignore the monitoring requirement.
December 4, 2018 — Hawaii’s longliners caught their quota for bigeye tuna early again this year. But that may not be an issue going forward if U.S. officials can negotiate a higher limit next week with an international fisheries commission.
Meanwhile, consumers can expect stable tuna prices for the holidays as the longline fleet continues to haul in a steady stream of fresh ahi to Honolulu’s fish auction.
The season for bigeye tuna, one of two types of fish known as ahi in Hawaii, was uninterrupted thanks in part to a quota-sharing agreement that lets the longliners fish beyond the internationally agreed upon limit for the U.S. in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean.
The Hawaii longline fleet of roughly 145 vessels, based in Honolulu, had a 2018 limit of 3,554 metric tons, which it hit Nov. 1.
But under an agreement with the Northern Mariana Islands, the longliners, as they have for the last few years, paid $250,000 into a fishery development fund and continued fishing for another 1,000 tons. The longliners were about 57 percent of the way through that extra allotment as of last week.
November 30, 2018 — All of the tuna stocks under the oversight of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC), except for Pacific bluefin, are at “green” or healthy levels, the International Sustainable Seafood Foundation (ISSF) reports.
However, the WCPFC meeting scheduled for Dec. 9-14, in Honolulu, Hawaii, is a chance to review supporting measures proposed by ISSF and also the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) to better preserve tropical tuna species, suggest Claire van der Geest, an ISSF strategy policy advisor, and Bubba Cook, the WWF’s western and central Pacific Ocean tuna program manager, in a blog posted this week by ISSF.
Those include strengthening the management of fish aggregating devices (FADs) by using non-entangling designs and also improving the management of at-sea transshipment practices to reduce Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing activities as well as bad labor practices.