Business
Ban Use Of Purse Seine Fishing Boats, Fiji Says
'This type of fishing is killing marine life'
Fiji will press for a complete ban of the use of purse seine fishing boats in the Western and Central Pacific, or at least a minimum number and tighter controls on them. About 200 mainly Asian purse seiners, so called because of the big purse-like nets they use to sweep up whole schools of tuna and other species, are presently licensed to operate in the region under Forum Fisheries Agency registration rules.
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According to Fiji's fisheries and forests minister Konisi Yabaki, purse seine fishing is "environmentally unfriendly and should be controlled, minimised or completely banned. "This type of fishing is killing most marine living organisms including juvenile tuna fish. "Its excessive use in the region is detrimental to our healthy tuna stocks, and to our local industry," he claimed in a July statement in which he announced a temporary freeze on the issue of licences for fishing in the Fiji's 1.26 million square kilometres exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
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The statement came after pressure from local tuna fishermen who said their industry was in crisis because of the collapse of the local tuna stock caused by overfishing. Fresh tuna is a major industry for the country, with exports normally worth $F40-50 million a year.
But there has been controversy over the way the corruption-riddled fisheries department, now under investigation, has allowed the number of tuna licences issued to rise to 110, double the number recommended for persevering the stock's integrity by the Pacific Community's tuna research department. Yabaki said poor fishing in the Fiji EEZ could be due largely to weather, as well as overfishing.
The presence of tuna is influenced by local seasonal ocean temperature changes and longer-term influences like the El Nino effect, which causes Pacific-wide temperature variations. According to Pacific Community's Dr Tim Adams, poor fishing in the Western Pacific is being attributed to El Nino.
Graham Southwick, chief of The Fiji Fish Marketing Group, Fiji's dominant fresh tuna exporter, however believes the local industry's troubles have been caused by the fishery ministry's policies. This set an annual limit of 15,000 tons on the local tuna catch, 5000 tons more than the Pacific Community's recommendation.
The ministry added "insult to injury" by setting a vessel limit of about 166 tons a year, about half the level needed to operate profitably, Southwick said. "These figures were then presented to cabinet for endorsement. Cabinet then, in effect, signed the industry's death warrant." He said the local stock was presently being hit by four times the sustainable limit since twice as many vessels recommended were setting twice as many hooks than before to attain viability, and failing.
The result of "unbridled pillage" was that the local catch within the EEZ was down to 30 percent of what it was 10 to 12 years ago. "So far this year about four to five companies representing about 30 vessels have gone to the wall and have departed Fiji or arrested and sold by the courts.
Most major long established companies are losing money heavily and are on their last reserves and borrowing heavily." Southwick described a tuna management plan adopted last year as a "farce" with nearly every well intentioned directive "subverted, twisted or circumvented to fulfil the agenda of corrupt fisheries officials".
Evidence of that had been sent to the Prime Minister's office. "The ministry continues to encourage fake joint ventures, fake charters and fake arrangements between foreign companies and local front men." Banks had ceased to finance fishing vessels. Of the 96 vessels licensed and fishing currently, only 14 were not foreign-owned and operated, and only two were run by indigenous Fijians.
About nine to 12 licences reserved for Fijians were controlled by Chinese companies using "front man scams." Another worry, Southwick said, was the impact on the Fiji stock caused by heavy fishing by Asian boats licensed to fish in the Vanuatu and Solomon Islands EEZs, illegal fishing by unlicensed foreigners and the use of local partners by large number of foreign vessels for unloading their catches. "They use our desperately short cargo space, which they clog up and keep local vessels from unloading, but they are actively encouraged by corrupt fisheries officials.
"Their contribution to Fiji in terms of revenue, employment and so on, is negligible and in return they take our fish and actively undermine our market." The representative of an Asian fishing agency told Islands Business that about 300 foreign long-line vessels used Suva as a base for fishing on southern Pacific high seas.
Southwick said foreigners were fishing inside a 12-mile limited right up to the reef line, a zone supposedly reserved for local fishermen. "The government and the ministry have been aware of this situation for two years. Subsequent instructions from the Prime Minister's office had been ignored, or there was no sign of them being carried out."
The local industry would collapse within months unless immediate counteraction was taken, Southwick warned. Yabaki said apart from the temporary freeze on licences issued, a tuna management plan would be reviewed immediately to establish what number of vessels the local EEZ could sustain. Only local licenced vessels and those registered with the Forum Fisheries Agency would be allowed to discharge fish in Fiji.
Yabaki said he had ordered an investigation into allegations of foreign owners operating locally "under bogus charter and joint venture arrangements using locals as front men." Fiji would vigorously pursue at regional and international levels matters of concern to the local industry, particularly the increase in the number of purse seine vessels.
According to the Forum Fisheries Agency's latest annual report, the number of FFA vessels registered to fish in the EEZs of its member countries stood at 1264 at end of 2000/2001 compared with 1126 in 1999/2000, and 927 in 1998/1999. Sixty six percent were long-line vessels, 16 percent were purse seiners, nine percent were fish carriers, and three percent were pole-and-line boats.
Increases were mainly for Taiwan and Koreans vessels and the total was expected to climb to about 1200 by the end of August 2002 Of about 202 registered purse seiners, there were 10 Spanish vessels in Kiribati, about 10 Filipino boats in Papua New Guinea, about 30 United States boats, 27 Korea boats in Papua New Guinea, Nauru, the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Solomon Islands and Federated States of Micronesia, 41 Taiwan boats and one Chinese purse seiner.
