Majuro (25 November 2014) — The signing by the Marshall Islands government in Majuro Friday November 21, 2014 of a “vessel day scheme” (VDS) for longline fishing vessels triggers a regional plan for stepped up regulation of this significant part of the tuna fishing industry in the Pacific.
The Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) have successfully implemented a VDS for purse seine vessels, giving the eight member nations and Tokelau increasing control of, and benefits from, the industry. PNA developed details of a longline VDS in 2011, and needed approval of five of the eight members to bring the longline VDS into effect for those signing.
By signing the longline VDS plan for the Marshall Islands on Friday, Acting Minister of Resources and Development Phillip Muller brought to five the number of PNA nations that have formally endorsed the VDS for longliners for implementation. Other PNA nations that have signed the VDS for longliners are Nauru, Solomon Islands, Palau, and the Federated States of Micronesia.
“This was a very important milestone because it brings the Longline Vessel Day Scheme into effect for those five countries that have signed it,” said Dr. Transform Aqorau, the CEO of the PNA, who is based in Majuro. He said he looks forward to the other PNA members eventually joining the longline VDS “especially when the Tuna Commission explores options to reform and restructure the distant water longline fleet which is uncontrolled and unregulated.”
“The longline VDS is an integral part of the package of that reform that should see the transfer of longline fishing rights to coastal states, like the PNA, Japan and the Hawaii domestic longline fleet,” Dr. Aqorau said. “PNA members have sought zone-based limits, like the purse seine VDS, and opposed flag-based limits, because zone-based limits strengthen PNA sovereign rights and leave control with PNA members.”
He said the current Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) longline bigeye catch limits leave control of the longline fishery with flag states and the WCPFC. “This is causing longline fishing in PNA waters to decline while longlining on the high seas increases, reducing potential PNA revenue from longlining and undermining PNA domestic longline development,” Dr. Aqorau said.
When PNA members agreed in 2005 to the adoption of WCPFC flag-based longline bigeye catch limits, it was only as an “interim arrangement,” Dr. Aqorau said.
The stock assessment issued in September showing that bigeye is now over-fished and down to just 16 percent of its original “biomass” underlines that this “interim arrangement” has failed as a conservation measure. The status of bigeye tuna highlights the urgent need for an overhaul of conservation requirements in the largely unregulated high seas longline fishing industry, said Aqorau.
“There is no monitoring or verification of the present bigeye catch limits, which are ineffective as a bigeye conservation measure,” he said.
Distant water fishing nations have shown “a lack of respect for the small island developing states (SIDS) exemption that was part of the package agreed by PNA on flag-based limits in 2005, and the Tuna Commission and flag states continually try to remove this exemption, which will greatly limit development of PNA domestic longline fleets.”
This is why PNA has taken the initiative to manage longlining in their waters, and the longline VDS zone-based system of fishing effort limits is a key part of that management, Dr. Aqorau said.
-30-