Pacific islanders unite to demand a fair share of tuna access
07 November 2004
Tuna-fishing operators from Pacific island nations formed a new regional association on September 16th 2004, with the aim of having a greater say on regional tuna issues. "If we are to secure the future of our tuna fisheries for the benefit of Pacific Islanders, we must take the initiative to represent ourselves,? said the new association chairman, from the Federated States of Micronesia.
One of their main challenges "will be to get the national and regional (tuna) organisations to include the private-sector fishing industry in any discussions on tuna policies and programmes. We will also encourage our own members to work more closely on the expressed needs of the commercial fishing sector.'
It is hoped that the initiative will enable the local tuna-fishing industry in the Pacific to benefit from new management arrangements under the recently adopted Pacific Tuna Convention, including getting a fair share of the catch allocation.
This move comes after the leaders of the 35th Pacific Islands Forum met in Samoa in August 2004, where they resolved that Pacific island nations should try to get their own people more involved in the billion-dollar industry. At that time, Pacific island leaders agreed to seek increased sustainable returns from their fisheries resources including through the participation of the traditional resource owners in the fishing industry.
EU tuna fleets are slowly trying to move into Pacific waters, using the signing of fisheries protocols as tools for access.
Just over 2 million tonnes of tuna (half the world's total tuna catch), are taken from the Pacific each year. Speaking at the 35th Pacific Islands Forum meeting, Samoa's prime minister pointed out that: "As it is now, the forum countries together get only about 10 per cent of the value of the catch from our Pacific Ocean?. The new operator "sssociation has also underlined the fact that: "Increasing levels of fishing effort has come into the region, which has decreased local profitability dramatically, to a point where many domestic operators are facing increasing levels of debt, and have either gone out of business or have laid up vessels?. It has denounced "the ability of some foreign vessels, including domestically based foreign vessels, to use subsidies to continue fishing at catch rates that are uneconomic for vessels that comply fully with national regulations, pay taxes and duties and make genuine economic contributions to domestic economies?.
Editorial comment
?Uneconomic catch rate "san also be linked with over-fishing. In September, delegates at a conference in the Marshall Islands were told by scientists that some tuna species, including bigeye and yellowfin, cannot sustain any increases in fishing effort. Both bigeye and yellowfin tuna are being targeted by the new incoming EU fleets.
However, the Pacific island nations are responding, and demanding that a greater share of the benefits from the tuna fishery accrue to Pacific islanders. This is an objective common to all ACP countries, and there are lessons that other ACP countries could usefully learn from the Pacific island "strategy.
First of all, it is important that the sector get organised at the regional level, as the Pacific tuna operators have done. This is not only so as to have a greater say in the decision-making processes, but also in order to secure a fairer share of the resources, in this case a greater share of the tuna quota. Many coastal ACP countries have a local, often small-scale, national fisheries sector. If provided with the appropriate support, this sector has the potential to become an important tool for generating long-term socio-economic benefits: food security, employment (jobs for both men and women), household income, tax revenues, foreign exchange etc.
But it is often the case that, as in west Africa, the local sector’s access to resources is threatened by competition from foreign-owned, subsidised industrial fleets. Without a doubt, establishing an effective regional organisation of ACP operators is a necessary step towards defending the rights of local sectors to access to a fairer share of resources.
In the case of the Pacific, the organisational process is supported by the national governments and administrations. This is also an important aspect for other ACP countries to consider.
An ACP fisheries sector with a strong voice could help to strengthen the negotiating position of the ACP leaders in promoting long-term sustainable policies. Often in the past, the prospects of ACP fisheries sectors have been undermined by the negotiations of "cash for acces "sgreements for foreign fleets, as in the case of EU-ACP fisheries deals. If the cash from such deals was used for short-term spending, it has proved a spendthrift policy. Several ACP countries now face long-term impoverishment in terms of the availability of their natural resource wealth, in terms of local food-security systems, and in terms of the derivation and distribution of benefits from their fisheries.
This example from the Pacific islands, where national leaders have acted to support their local sectors to organise at regional level, is a wise and welcome move. Such a move can only help strengthen the position of their negotiators who face the voracious appetite of distant-water fishing nations (China, Japan, EU) for the billion-dollar industry that the Pacific tuna represents.