Cover Story
Fiji Fisheries in Bad Shape
Overfishing could close the industry
At 1.29 million square kilometres, Fiji's exclusive economic zone is by no means the largest in the Pacific Islands region, and far from being the richest in fish.
But the schools of skipjack, albacore, and yellowfin tuna moving through it, support fresh, processed, canned and frozen tuna exports worth more than F$70 million (US$30 million) a year to the country. In the mid 1990s, the Pacific Community's Noumea-headquartered Oceanic Fisheries Programme recommended that Fiji conserve its tuna stock with an annual 7500-tonne catch limit by no more than 60 fishing boats. With a government-owned cannery at Levuka supplying United States and European buyers, a fishing fleet based at Suva supplying fish to several local processors, and direct air cargo access to the Japanese sashimi market, the industry gave the appearance of being well regulated, progressive, and having scope for steady growth. But of late such long-established fishing businesses as Solander (Pacific) Ltd, and The Fiji Fish Marketing Group Ltd have been uneasy. Catch rates by the long-liners supplying them have been dropping and catches are more juvenile, so much so that fishing skippers began ignoring the clearly diminishing skipjack and yellowfin stocks to concentrate on the more plentiful albacore.
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Something else was happening. Although the fisheries department was reporting that the annual catch was running at 4000 to 5000 tonnes, quite below the limit, in Suva the customs department and others connected with the fishing business were reporting that the actual volume of fish being exported or handled as bycatch was much larger What was obvious since 1991, when only three local operators held licences, the number of licences had climbed steeply, with licences going to foreigners ‹ mainly Taiwanese, Chinese and some Korean and Japanese businesses.
But how many licences had been issued and how many fishing boats were actually out fishing? At Solander, chief executive David Lucas wasn¹t sure. At Fiji Fish neither was chief executive, Graham Southwick. But they were sure that fish stocks were declining that, according to Southwick, could close the industry in as little as 12 months.
In October, the looming crisis came to a head. After a direct plea by Southwick, appalled prime minister, Laisenia Qarase ordered the chopping of some heads in the fisheries department and ministry. In mid October, the hastily installed new permanent secretary for fisheries, Vuetasau Buatoka, told a meeting of the industry, called at a day's notice, that he was starting an investigation into allegations of corruption in his department. This followed revelations that the tuna fishery was on the verge of being devastated by the imminent arrival of a hundred more Taiwanese longliners for which licences had been issued. A fishing licence committee had been reconstituted with new members, with Buatoka as chairman. The committee, Buatoka said, would be meeting immediately to review its position. "The fact that the government has reacted quickly is very encouraging to us," Southwick said.
The crisis came as a Forum Fisheries Agency team, which was present at the meeting, coincidentally arrived from Honiara to begin work on a tuna fishery management plan, the latest of a number prepared for Forum Fisheries Agency member countries.
What was the total number of licences issued? That was the figure Southwick, nor anyone else in the commercial side of the industry, could get from the fisheries department. The department didn't want to talk about it. Something stank.
Southwick's estimate of the number of vessels actually fishing was about 80 ‹ 20 more than the recommended limit. He learnt that several years ago. With no announcement, the ministry ³with absolutely no scientific basis², he said, quietly lifted the cap on licences to 150 - nearly three times the recommended limit.
Last year, under the then caretaker minister for agriculture and fisheries, Apisai Tora, the number of new licences issued became a secret flood. While licences were being splurged to foreign fishing vessels, Southwick said, applications by local indigenous fishermen, of proven experience and competence, were rejected.
How many are now current? The industry meeting at last got a figure from the fisheries department: 241, four times more than the Pacific Community¹s recommended limit. Most are for fishing by Taiwanese ships, the first seven to 10 of which arrived in Fiji near the end of October.
Recipients included 20 for a company believed to have Russian backing, 35 for local fish processing companies, and seven for a company owned by three local politicians, supporters of the Qarase government, and two being cabinet ministers.
Southwick told the tuna industry meeting he believed this year¹s catch would be 18,000 to 20,000 tonnes, fished by 80 boats. The impact of another 100 would be devastating. Even to have lifted the cap to 150 was "absolutely insane."
"We are overfishing with 80."
The size of landings in Fiji is being watched with unease by the fisheries agency in Noumea. According to the programme's co-ordinator, Dr Tony Lewis, there were indications that the size of the 2000 catch was "seriously underestimated". In a message to Southwick, he said, it seemed that the catch of all species had been at least 8000 tonnes, more than 50 percent above the official figure, and perhaps as high at 10,000 tonnes. The 2001 catch would "considerably exceed" 10,000 tonnes. With only four percent of the region's exclusive economic zone area, and a zone of only "moderate" productivity, Fiji was supplying at least eight percent of the South Pacific¹s longline catch, and 15 percent of the albacore tuna catch.
"With the efficiency of vessels in the Fiji industry steadily increasing, annual per-vessel catches are now as high as 450 tonnes. It is clear that the existing fleet at full efficiency could take several times the sustainable harvest. On that basis alone, it could be argued that the number of existing vessels should be reduced." Buatoka told the industry meeting his ministry would have to find out how far new licensees had gone in investing to prepare for fishing, before deciding on which could be culled.
Since licences are for 12 months the ministry's obvious avenue for cutting the number drastically is simply to decline renewing expiring licences. Nothing would be done that adversely affect local fishermen, Buatoka promised.
He said plans for the industry included the development of a fishing port to replace existing inadequate facilities, and the expansion of local fish processing businesses.
But his remarks that the government would consider establishing a national fishing corporation drew a protest from Southwick. The Pacific was strewn with failed government fishing companies, he said. Fiji already has one such failed venture to its account.
Southwick's business, The Fiji Fish Marketing Group, dominates the industry. It has about a thousand employees, is supplied by 68 vessels including 15 of its own, and handles about 10,000 tonnes of fish a year. Much of Southwick's fish goes to the sashimi market in Japan.
