Only Bycatch - Two!

Turns out that the Tuna longliners have been, gasp, lying!

You don't say!

Did it really take a "study" to confirm what had been obvious all along and what we here in Fiji had known for years?

Anyway.

Good that now, it is out in the open - and good that the FFA wants to bring it up and have it banned at the next WCPFC meeting. There will undoubtedly be the usual dirty politics and stalling (responsible fishing nations?) but eventually, this will be resolved - undoubtedly, only to be replaced by new shenanigans!

And so it goes!

Fiji's Tuna Industry - the Saga continues!

Foreign distant water fleets: reaping and pillaging the SoPac. Source. 

Remember?

And I cite.

The number of vessels fishing for tuna continues to increase in the Pacific, with last year’s 297 fishing boats setting an all-time high. 
But 45 more purse seiners are now under construction in Asian shipyards, which will “cause sustainability problems in the fishery,” he said and raised “serious concerns about the increasing number of vessels fishing in the region.

“What we now see from the 2012 fishing data is more boats in the fishery, higher overall catches, smaller fish sizes and the lowest ever levels of fisheries biomass for these tuna stocks.”

Marshall Islands fisheries Director Glen Joseph said as bad as it sounds, the situation is worse. “It’s not just bigeye tuna raising concern,” he said. “Swordfish catches are raising a red flag.”
And yellowfin tuna is reported by scientists to be near its maximum sustainable yield. “If distant water fishing nations support sustainability of the resource, then they need to commit to a 30 percent reduction in catches,” Joseph said. “It’s not a question of should they do it or not. They have to do it or face the consequences.”

And here's another one.

Many blame the foreign tuna fishing fleets with their large-scale operations that buy the rights to fish in Western and Central pacific fisheries, and whose numbers are steadily increasing.
In the past decade, China's fishing fleet has ballooned with hundreds of new heavily state-subsidised boats now operating in the southern Albacore tuna fishery.
Greenpeace's Nathaniel Pelle says in return the Pacific nations are paid access fees but often their slice of the estimated $7 billion a year Pacific tuna industry is less than 10 per cent.

Rosetti Imo, a bio-economist with the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency, says the loss of the local tuna industry would be a huge economic blow for the region.
"In terms of value to the Pacific islands and how our economies rely on this resource its very, very valuable and most of our small economies rely on this resource absolutely", he said.

Fisheries management experts say one solution might be withdrawing or cutting back foreign access to their exclusive economic zones.
Greenpeace's Nathaniel Pelle agrees: “In the long term there is no benefit of having this system of reliance on selling access to foreign vessels, the economic benefit is going to come from having a stable fishing population.” 

Looks like everybody knows what needs to be done.

Leadership anybody?  

Is Fiji losing its Tuna Industry?

Same old same old - re-read this post! Click for detail!

Remember?

Now it could well be too late.

Fiji Fish has closed down its Tuna fishing arm and another prominent player has stopped half of its fleet and is laying off its staff.

Government is promising action and we shall see where this goes.

Let's hope this is not too little too late.

When I wrote that post linked at the top, Greenpeace had not yet published its report and upon finally reading it, I cannot but fully agree with every single word - read it, it is as short as it is compelling!

There are plenty of good recommendations but for me, the take-away message is that the shenanigans need to stop, the fishery needs to become sustainable and that monitoring, enforcement and prosecution need to improve - but above all, that our local governments need to build capacity towards developing smaller scale and locally owned fisheries whilst telling those industrial and highly subsidized foreign-owned vessels to fuck off!

To be continued no doubt!

Is Fiji's Tuna Industry facing Extinction?

Canned Tuna. There's heaps upon heaps of it - but is it possibly too cheap?

I was frankly dismayed by this article.
No not about the fact that the Tuna Industry wants to keep exploiting Sharks - that I knew already.
I was dismayed because apparently, Fiji's Tuna Industry is facing total collapse.

If so, fishing for Sharks will not save it.
It would merely establish a second unsustainable fishery on top of an apparently nonviable one. The result would be that Shark stocks would be quickly exhausted with devastating effects for marine ecosystems including the Tuna, meaning that in only a few years we would end up with no Sharks, no Tuna and even less Fish.
That surely cannot be the solution!

But that's not really the topic here.
I've said it before, everybody here wants the Tuna Industry to survive.
This is a vital component of Fiji's economy and everybody, and this very much including government, should lend a helping hand in assuring that both the local Tuna fishing and Tuna processing sectors can survive in the long term and continue providing for employment and opportunities for many generations to come.
This obviously mandates that the Industry be sustainable but also profitable.

For that to happen, it appears that the fishery needs to be reformed.
I really ignore the details - but if it is really true that Fiji's Tuna Industry is in such dire straights like its spokesman asserts, then the likely reasons could be.

• That Tuna stocks are depleted.
  That is highly likely.
  You may want to re-read this post about the appalling shenanigans that happen within the WCPFC where outsiders like specifically Japan are stalling any efforts to curb quotas in line with the best scientific advice. This year specifically has been particularly depressing as previously reserved regions have been opened to allow the Philippines to further exploit the already ravaged stocks of Bigeyes,
  If those foreign powers continue to interfere and sabotage the attempts to safeguard those precious stocks, Fiji should do what is best for Fiji and set its own targets and rules, very much like the PNA have already done.
  In the end, there is only one long term solution, and that is to fish sustainably, and this very much also by defining the quotas in line with the precautionary principle.
  Interestingly, this is what Mr. Southwick himself appears to be advocating here!

and/or

• That there is Overcapacity.
  There are probably already too many boats fishing for too few Fish and if so, Fiji should reduce the number of fishing licenses that are being awarded and thus increase the profit margin for individual vessels.
  There, I'm principally thinking of the licenses awarded to foreign vessels.
  Their track record is unequivocal: they have already overfished their own stocks, have zero regard for our well being but will instead catch whatever they can get their hands on, and then sail on once our stocks are equally depleted, leaving Fiji to contend with the long-term consequences - or am I to believe that the price of the licenses contains a component for mitigation? I wish!
  I say, Fiji first! If the Asians want to eat Tuna caught in Fiji, let them buy Fijian Tuna caught by Fijian fishermen and exported by Fijian processing plants!
  Did I hear, and what happens to the development aid by those countries, namely Europe, Taiwan and the US to name but a few?
  If they want to assist us by paying for poverty alleviation and development, we are certainly grateful. But to link it to an unsustainable fishery that depletes our national resources and ultimately impoverishes the nation and its population cannot possibly be acceptable, not economically and not ethically - or am I missing something here?
  

and/or

• That the fishery is not profitable.
  If so and if all costs have already been slashed, then the price of Tuna must increase. Canned Tuna is probably too cheap and the time where it was viewed as some kind of junk food must come to an end.
  One smart strategy for convincing customers to pay more, is to have the fishery certified like once again the PNA have already achieved. That of course implies that the fishery is truly sustainable, meaning that bycatch and other ecological impacts will need to be reduced, as already required by, the current MSC environmental standard. Another group, the ISSF is asking its members not to work with vessels that fin Sharks
  In fact, the Fijian Albacore longline fishery is currently being assessed and my hope is that the Industry as a whole will decide to follow that route.
  I say, let's brand our Tuna.
  With Fiji Water having already paved the way and Government facilitating the process, let's establish Fiji Tuna as being Tuna that has been caught sustainably in pristine waters by happy, friendly and fairly compensated fishermen!
  

But the current unsustainable fishing for Sharks must stop.
At best, it is a short term stop-gap measure that is merely detracting from the need to urgently tackle the real issues at hand. But it is of course much more than that: if it continues unchecked, it will lead to the collapse of all fisheries - and this very much including the local fishery for Tuna!

And that's not something anybody can possibly want.
Correct?

Tuna Wars in the Pacific!

Southern Bluefin - now revealed as being Critically Endangered!

I still don't quite know what happened at the WCPFC meeting.
Probably nothing to be too happy about, if this wail by Greenpeace is anything to go by.

But then again, that's just what Greenpeace do.
They have decided to take on the Tuna industry, have published at least one rather good overview and post a lot of videos, of which the following is a more moderate example whereas this one is an unmitigated messaging disaster.



The industry is not taking it laying down.
It has countered with it's own anti-Greenpeace website and with polished videos like this one.



Personally, I find all of this rather unbecoming and little goal oriented.
If one remained rational, both sides should be able to cooperate as they should be striving for the same outcome, i.e. long term sustainability. But such is the nature of those fights: fishermen over-fish and NGOs over-dramatize and I'll certainly leave it at that.

Luckily, we don't have to care all too much.
Ultimately, neither Greenpeace nor the for Tuna fishing industry have any say in this - those who take the decisions are the members of the WCPFC.
But here is the bad news: the membership is not being limited to the owners of the resource, i.e. the countries within the boundaries of the area covered by the convention but has instead been extended to the notorious resource pillagers like Europe (=Spain!!!), the US, Japan, Taiwan and China. Can somebody please explain why those countries are being allowed to arrogate themselves the right to decide about the resources that do not belong to them? Is that the dark side of development aid?
The bad news is also, that this particular convention (Art.20) mandates decisions by consensus or failing that, by a complicated 3/4 majority, meaning that positive change is painfully hard to come by and can always be blocked by one of those countries that are not members of the Pacific Islands Forum.
The good news? The member states are free to legislate further-reaching measures within their territories, and the PNA have done just that, and this very much in favor of sustainability, and are now calling the big fishing nations to task, as do the more forward thinking and pragmatic NGOs - alas probably in vain.

Long story short?
As always, it is terribly complicated and I'm sure that I'm missing the finer points. Where I am coming from in this particular debate is that I certainly advocate preserving the Pacific's vibrant and profitable commercial fishing industry as a vital contribution to the islands' economies, this however strictly under the following guidelines.

• the absolute need to focus on sustainability in order to preserve the industry for generations to come - and by this, I mean sustainability in the widest possible sense, very much taking into consideration issues like bycatch and other more general impacts on the ecosystem, etc
  
• the absolute requirement to apply the precautionary approach (Article 6) whenever there is a debate
• and like I said before, I believe that it is high time that the burden of proof be changed so that it would be the comparatively wealthy fishing industry having to invest the resources into science and monitoring and prove that what they do is sustainable, and not the cash-strapped authorities having to prove that it is not.
• And if I really, really had it my way: I would tell those foreign fleets to just fuck off and those countries, to buy their Tuna from the Pacific Islands who own them!
  

But most urgently, those destructive practices must go.
The FADs are an ecological disaster, and I strongly invite you to read David's posts here and here and educate yourselves about just how bad they are. Seriously, read them: talk about an emotional initiative by the Dolphin geeks gone horribly wrong! And the long lining industry could do much better by finally adopting the various options for bycatch mitigation as e.g. mandated by the MSC - and incidentally, catch more Tuna in the process!

And to end this on a positive note.
This is completely bycatch-free, stunningly filmed by my pal Richard Wollocombe.
Enjoy!



PS interesting article shedding some light on the negotiations here!
PS2 Pew synopsis, finally, here!
PS3 Tuna fishing ban lifted - remember?

Saving Fiji's Sharks!

At risk: Fiji's Reef Sharks - click for detail

Please read this article by Helen.
Helen is not only a good friend and one of Fiji's most intelligent and most efficient marine conservationists, she is also currently managing the Fiji Shark Sanctuary campaign for CORAL and Pew.

What she highlights is a rather recent and deeply disturbing development.
Owing to its airline connections to Asia and a thriving Tuna processing industry, Fiji has long been one of the principal Shark fin hubs in the SoPac. In the past, the traded annual volume of more than 100 metric tons consisted principally of fins that were being offloaded from the longliners, most of which are foreign distant water vessels that hail from Taiwan. The commercial benefit to the country is practically zero as the crews simply take the money and then sail away, leaving Fiji and its neighbors to deal with the ecological consequences.

This was filmed at a prominent Tuna processing plant in Lami.



This is however not the fishery Helen is talking about.
We are increasingly witnessing incidences where local fishermen are targeting Fiji's coastal Sharks. The driver for this fishery is the demand for the fins by Asian middlemen that have traditionally been associated with the bêche-de-mer trade. Fiji's sea cucumbers are heavily over-exploited, to the point where volumes and thus revenues are plummeting, and this has led the traders who already dispose of a network of excellent connections to coastal communities all across the country to diversify into Shark fins, with devastating consequences for local Shark stocks. The trade extends to most of the remote islands where aggregator vessels are known to sail from village to village and barter for the fins. Prices mentioned are as ridiculously low as one bag of sugar against three bags of fins.

As always, the ultimate losers will be the fishermen themselves.
Each qoliqoli only harbors a very limited amount of Sharks that will be quickly wiped out, meaning that the local fishing grounds will be deprived of their most important keystone species, with catastrophic and practically irreversible consequences for the reef fish communities. In brief, the fishermen are trading tiny short-term profits for very severe long-term effects that could well impact the livelihoods of generations to come.

Solutions?
Possibly education - but with so many people trying to make ends meet, money will always prevail. Ultimately, only a full Sanctuary with draconian laws will save Fiji's local fisheries and preserve the long-term sustainability, and thus the way of life of our coastal communities.

Tuna Wars!

Right...

Remember the posts about the Pacific Tuna Industry?
First the whistleblower video by Greenpeace and then the appalling evidence that purse seiners are using Whale Sharks as FADs?

But, is it really true?
Well, check out this website.

Interesting huh.
To me, it's all déjà vu, very much on the lines of the present appalling climate change denialism. Seen it all before 30-40 years ago, see below.