Tuna Industry Development in the South Pacific : a Coordinated Approach

Gerry Geen

FFA Report 94/19

PACIFIC ISLANDS FORUM FISHERIES AGENCY P.O.BOX 629 HONIARA TELEPHONE (677) 21124 FAX (677) 23995 WEB http://www.ffa.int TUNA INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENT IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC: A COORDINATED APPROACH

Gerry Geen

Forum Fisheries Agency

Introduction In 1993, the tuna catch in the waters within and adjacent to the fishing zones of member countries of the Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA)1 is estimated to have amounted to nearly one million tonnes valued at around US$1,470 million. The catch from these rich fishing grounds constitutes about 40 per cent of the annual world catch of tunas. Three types of vessels operate in the fishery; purse seiners, longliners and pole and line vessels. More than three quarters of the total tuna catch from the region is taken by purse seiners, most of which are from Japan, USA, Taiwan, Korean and the Philippines. The focus of the purse seine fishery for yellowfin and skipjack tunas is in the mid latitudes, within 100 of the equator, both within national fishing zones and in adjacent high seas. Although the longline and pole and line fisheries are more broadly spread throughout the South Pacific region, there is also a concentration of fishing effort in equatorial waters. Again, the vast majority of the longline and pole and line vessels are owned and operated by foreigners. Although many Pacific island countries (PICs) charge foreign fishermen for the right to fish in their waters, these access fees are modest, at around 4-5% of the value of the catch. Few additional economic benefits have been derived by PICs from the ‘over the horizon’ fishing activities of the foreign licensed vessels. There is widespread dissatisfaction amongst PICs about the continued dominance of foreign interests in the harvesting and processing of South Pacific tuna and the corresponding lack of progress in the development of their domestic tuna industries. The purpose of this article is to briefly describe some of the initiatives taken by PICs to manage foreign fishing activities in their waters and to outline recently developed strategies to promote the development of domesticpur se seine industries in the region. Tuna Industry Management Gaining increased control over foreign fishing fleets operating in their waters has been a high priority for PICs since the declaration of their 200 mile national fishing zones in the late 1970s. A co-ordinated approach between PICs in their dealings with distant water fishing nations allowed the development and implementation of a number of initiatives which have enabled coastal states in the South Pacific region to exercise increased authority over foreign fishing in their waters. Agreement In 1982, the seven FFA member countries2 whose waters largely encompass the rich equatorial tuna fishery entered into an agreement to promote regional co-operation and co-ordination of fisheries

1 Australia, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, , , Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, , , Solomon Islands, Tonga, , Vanuatu and Western Samoa. 2 Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. Tuvalu acceded to the agreement in 1990.

Pag e policies and to thereby facilitate the management of the tuna fishery. The resulting establishment of the ‘Nauru Agreement Concerning Co-operation in the Management of Fisheries of Common Interest’ was an important milestone in the establishment by PICs of control over the activities of the foreign fishing fleets in their zones. An early outcome of the Nauru Agreement was the development of harmonised minimum terms and conditions of access (MTCs) for foreign fishing vessels operating in the 200 mile fishing zones of countries in the region. The MTCs prescribe minimum standards which foreign operators must reach in terms of catch and position reporting, vessel markings, the placement of observers, the conduct of transhipment operations and registration on the ‘Regional Register of Foreign Fishing Vessels’ administered by FFA. These requirements were progressively introduced by PICs into their bilateral access agreements with distant water fishing nations and were the source of much confrontation in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Throughout the 1980s, PICs, against strong opposition from distant water fishing nations, steadily improved their degree of control over the activities of foreign fleets operating in the region by introducing increasingly stringent requirements into their bilateral access agreements. In mid 1993, a new MTC was implemented which requires all purse seine vessels to tranship their catches in port, forcing vessel operators to discontinue their practice of transhipping at sea, either within zones or on the high seas. The ban on transhipment at sea brought about immediate improvements in monitoring and surveillance. For the first time, PICs are able to collect reasonably accurate data on the amount of fish being caught by the purse seine fleet, data which are clearly important for stock assessment and monitoring, as well as for economic analyses of the value of access to PIC zones by foreign fleets. However, the ability of PIC governments to affect the overall level of purse seine activity in the region remained fairly limited. Licensing fewer boats in Papua New Guinea, for example, could be expected to result in more vessels fishing in the waters of neighbouring countries and in the high seas enclaves between them. In the late 1980s, scientific concern about the health of the yellowfin tuna stock reinforced the need for PICs to develop a co-operative regional approach to manage the purse seine fishery. Palau Arrangement In 1992, the ‘Palau Arrangement for the Management of the Western Pacific Purse Seine Fishery’ was signed by the eight parties to the Nauru Agreement, against fierce lobbying by distant water fishing nations, particularly Japan, which insisted, unsuccessfully, that it should be a party to any arrangement which affected its fishing interests. However, the experience of PICs in their dealings with distant water fishing nations was such that they had little confidence that the involvement of foreign interests in management decision making would be of benefit to the PICs whose waters encompass most of the fishery. The Palau Arrangement, by placing limits on the number of both foreign and domestic purse seiners licensed to fish in the region, established a framework for the effective management of the fishery. Although there are productive pockets of high seas within the fishery, they are unable to support year round fishing activities due to the movements of the fish stocks in and out of the fishing zones of PICs. Purse seine vessels need to enter PIC zones to operate viably. Placing a limit on the number of vessels licensed within zones is, therefore, an effective method of limiting the number of vessels active in the fishery as a whole. At the same time as increasingly stringent MTCs were being introduced and the Palau Arrangement established, parallel developments were taking place in the area of fisheries enforcement and surveillance. The Niue Treaty on Co-operation in Fisheries Surveillance and Law Enforcement in the South Pacific Region, which entered into force in mid 1993, established a framework for PICs to co-

Pag e operate on a bilateral basis to facilitate the more efficient use of their limited surveillance and fisheries law enforcement resources. For example, under the Niue Treaty a PIC may authorise the use of a patrol boat and surveillance officers of another party to act on its behalf in its zone. The fisheries management and surveillance and enforcement initiatives taken by PICs in the 1980s and early 1990’s greatly strengthened their negotiating positions in relation to extracting greater economic benefits from the distant water fishing nations. By introducing an increasingly restrictive management regime on foreign fishing PICs are also creating incentive for foreign fishermen to seriously consider basing their operations in ports in the region in order to gain long term security of access to the tuna fishery. Domestic Industry Development PICs have, since the late 1970s, viewed the licensing of foreign fleets to exploit the tuna resources of their fishing zones as an interim measure pending the development of domestic fishing industries. However, relatively little has been achieved in local industry development in most countries over the last 15 years. Few economic benefits, other than access fees, have been derived by PICs from foreign fishing in their waters. There is little employment of local people as crew members and the foreign operators have seldom used local ports for refuelling or provisioning their vessels or for processing their catches. There has been little transfer of fishing, marketing or enterprise management skills or fishing technologies to PIC nationals. Compared with the 1,200 foreign fishing vessels operating in the region, the locally based fleet is small, with a total of 21 purse seiners, around 26 longliners and 42 pole and line vessels. In 1993, the catches of the locally based vessels generated revenues of less than 5% of the total estimated value of the tuna harvest from the region. Phase down of foreign purse seine fishing In 1993-94, there has been a substantial increase in the number of purse seiners operating under locally based joint ventures, with at least eight vessels added, or about to be added, to the fleet in the Federated States of Micronesia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Kiribati. However, none of these vessels were previously licensed in the region so it would appear that growth in the size of the domestic fleet has not, so far, led to any corresponding decrease in the number of licensed foreign vessels. The reluctance of existing foreign operators to change the nature of their fishing activities through the development of locally based enterprises indicates that additional incentive is required to encourage them to make this transition. The Palau Arrangement is a useful tool in this context as it allows PICs to control the number of both foreign and domestic purse seine vessels operating in the region. As it is clearly not the intention of the Palau Arrangement to constrain domestic industry development, PICs agreed that, in view of the continuing growth in the number of locally based purse seine vessels, there is a need to make more licences available for these vessels while containing the overall size of the purse seine fleet operating in the region. As a result, a meeting of the parties to the Nauru Agreement, held in May 1994, agreed that there would be a phased reduction in the number of licences available to foreign purse seine operators. Specifically, the first phase will involve a 10% reduction in the allocation of bilateral licences to each foreign fleet, to take effect in early 1997, and a corresponding increase in the number of licences available to domestic vessels. The additional domestic licences will become available in late 1994, prior to the implementation of the reduction in foreign licences, so it is possible that the total number of vessels operating in the region could temporarily increase above the current limit. However, the number of licences available will return to the current level in early 1997.

Pag e The three year time frame for the phased reduction gives foreign operators adequate time to adjust the nature of their enterprises to become locally based in the region with a view to qualifying for domestic licences. Although the licence allocation criteria for domestic vessels are still being developed, the agreed objective is to licence the vessels which are likely to offer the greatest long term economic benefits to their host countries. There are a number of characteristics of an enterprise which will affect the extent of economic benefits derived by the host country and which could be taken into account in the licensing criteria. These characteristics include the flag state of the vessel, the degree of PIC ownership, the level of employment of PIC nationals, the value of onshore investments and the degree to which fishing inputs, such as provisions and fuel, are purchased locally. Incorporating such characteristics into the licensing system for domestic vessels, will in effect, create a template for future foreign participation in the development of thedom estic purse seine industry. Preferential access for domestic purse seiners A closely related issue to the phased reduction in foreign purse seine licensing is the current development of an internal multilateral agreement between PICs on the preferential access of domestic purse seine vessels to their waters. This agreement, when signed (probably in late 1994), will allow domestically licensed vessels operating under the Palau Arrangement to fish in the waters of PICs, in addition to their host country, at a substantially lower cost than would be possible under a series of bilateral arrangements. Such an arrangement will also increase the operational flexibility of the vessels, allowing them to follow the tuna schools around the region without suffering the delays and administrative difficulties inherent in gaining bilateral licences. The purpose of the proposed arrangement is twofold. Firstly, it is to support the operations of the fledgling domestic purse seine enterprises. Some of these enterprises find it difficult to afford the bilateral licences, often priced at the same level as those sold to foreign fishermen, which are necessary to enable them to access the waters of other PICs and maintain viable catch rates. Secondly, it is to stimulate the further development of the domestic purse seine industry. Preferential treatment by PICs of each others domestic purse seine vessels will provide additional incentive for foreign operators to base their vessels in PIC ports and to establish local enterprises which would be eligible for domestic purse seine licences under the Palau Arrangement. Concluding comments Since the early 1980s, PICs have worked together to develop and introduce increasingly tough terms and conditions to their licensing agreements governing the activities of the fishing vessels of distant water fishing nations in PIC zones. The co-ordination of national licensing policies and the development of regional programmes, such as the Palau Arrangement, has, in recent times, brought the equatorial tuna purse seine fishery under the effective control and management of PICs. PICs have now focused their attention on the development of their domestic tuna industries. Again, using a co-operative regional approach, PICs are putting increased pressure on foreign fishermen to base their vessels in the region and establish local enterprises which will be of long term economic benefit to the host countries. The phased reduction in foreign purse seine fishing in the region is an important step toward the long term goal of developing domestic fishing industries. This need not mean the displacement of foreign fishermen from the region. On the contrary, their integration into the developing domestic industry is keenly sought by PICs, anxious to benefit from the experience and capital of foreign operators. Co- operation by PICs in domestic tuna industry development is a new direction for the region, a direction which is likely to both increase the pace and improve the quality of domestic tuna industry development.

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