Fishing nations that are refusing to provide tuna catch data to regional management organizations should be sanctioned, a tuna industry official told journalists in Suva, Fiji on Tuesday.
“The industry can provide accurate data,” said Phil Roberts, the Singapore-based managing director of Tri-Marine International, a global supplier of tuna. “If they don’t provide the data, don’t wail about it in the newspaper, penalize them.”
Roberts was commenting on concern raised by fisheries scientists earlier this month during presentations of new stock assessments that show bigeye tuna is now being over-fished and by island fisheries officials in Suva at a two-day tuna workshop who expressed concern about the lack of data from four Asian fishing nations.
