Down At The Wharf

Figures released by the Ministry of Marine Resources, the government bureau that oversees the industry, show that in 2002 the industry hauled in 1,000 metric tons bringing in NZ$4.5 million in revenue for the country. The following year, 2,300 metric tonnes was recorded, increasing revenue almost two-fold, to NZ$8m.

This performance has prompted key people in government and the private sector to be very cautious of how the industry is handled.

"We are a new industry and we would like to think that we would not make the same mistakes as others and I feel, under current management and direction, we will become a leader for fisheries management in the Pacific," says Andrew Jones, one of the fisheries officers responsible for the new industry. In recent months, he has been cracking down on boat owners to install auto location communicators (ALC) on their boats that would link into the maritime police Vessel Monitoring System (VMS). "We want to make sure that everyone is doing what they are supposed to be doing. No more, no less."

The teamwork between government and the private sector to nurture and protect the industry to date is admirable. In the southern Cooks (including Rarotonga the seat of government) where fishing is more seasonal, government is banking on the private sector to dictate how much they want to spend there.

Businessman Brett Porter says, "the secret in turning the fishery into a fishing industry for the Cook Islands was to provide an infrastructure on the ground and to provide access for the recognized longline fishing fleets, and to that end we have signed a contract with Shanghai Deep Sea Fisheries, which is mainland China's biggest longline fishing fleet".

Porter who owns a fish processing plant in Rarotonga admits that it is still early days. "We are still learning the ropes and there is very little data and science to back this fishery-all parties have agreed that to establish that requires a lot of pioneering and study of the temperatures, the current, etc."

However, Porter is convinced that in the long term, the fishery is capable of being a sizeable economic contributor to the Cooks.

The Cooks has jurisdiction over two million square kilometers of South Pacific Ocean and finding out where and when the highly migratory stocks of tuna pass through is the key to commercial success.

Porter says the formation of the FSM-based tuna commission means, "whatever happens in the industry it must encompass recognition of sustainability and recognition of our resource, and that must be combined with the maximization of that resource for our country."