The eight Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) control 30 percent of the world's tuna supply and 60 percent of that from the western and central Pacific. Negotiating as a bloc, the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu now call the shots on tuna fishing access in the region, and they are increasingly dissatisfied with existing arrangements.
While the group has gradually implemented stricter management and raised license fees, vessels operating in international waters near the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of these countries operate without per-vessel catch limits, and their activities affect fish stocks in the PNA area. By excluding vessels that fish outside the PNA zone from fishing within it, the members have been able to effectively close down some pockets of international waters outside their EEZs, but their recent fee hikes along with lower tuna prices are making these pockets tempting again. Industry reports show landings in Thailand of bigeye tuna have increased four-fold in the past two years, with much of the increase coming from international waters near the exclusive economic zones of Kiribati and the Marshall Islands. This has led Transform Aqorau, CEO of the PNA to suggest closing some pockets of international waters in the eastern Pacific to tuna fishing.
The group will also begin a trial program in 2016 of charging vessels that set fish aggregation devices (FADs) in PNA waters USD 1000 (EUR 900) per day in order to discourage their use. The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) has set a four-month annual closure of FAD fishing to reduce bycatch of juvenile bigeye and yellowfin in the skipjack fishery. However, in member states where bigeye is not a significant revenue source, the long FAD ban cuts into their earnings from skipjack licensing. Levying the fee in place of a strict moratorium would allow vessel operators in those areas more flexibility to use FADs, while still providing a financial disincentive for their use.
The centerpiece of the PNA’s management system is its Vessel Day Scheme (VDS), under which vessels are charged for each day they fish in the area. This system has increased licensing revenue from USD 64 million in 2010 to an estimated USD 357 million this year. In contrast, the WCPFC takes an approach of limiting total fishing capacity, currently capped at 205 purse seiners fishing WCPFC waters, and Total Allowable Catch. The WCPFC includes countries involved in the distant water fishery who are mainly interested in maintaining access, so the interests of these members are often at odds with those of the island nations seeking to maximize their own revenue from the resource.
That cap set the stage for a diplomatic spat in January, when Taiwan ordered work halted on a purse-seine vessel, the Tautaloa, intended for a Tuvalu joint venture company, as inconsistent with the WCPFC capacity cap. To license a new purse seiner, the Taiwan government maintained, an old vessel must be scrapped so as not to increase overall capacity. The PNC maintains that its per-vessel limits make the capacity cap unnecessary. In protest, Tuvalu, which currently participates in its own fishery with just one purse seine vessel, refused to grant licenses to Taiwanese vessels.
Getting the right and means to develop its own resource is a national priority for Tuvalu and other remote island groups. However, their lack of infrastructure and transport links, and small domestic market, make profitable shore-based tuna processing challenging.
