The Cook Islands has become the first Pacific Island nation to adopt a quota management system (QMS) for its longline fishery to control catches of albacore and bigeye tuna.
The country’s Ministry of Marine Resources’ (MMR) Large Pelagic Longline Fishery and Quota Management System Regulations 2016, approved by Cabinet and Executive Council, are a significant step forward in allowing the Cook Islands to commit to a catch limit agreed to among Pacific Island countries through the Tokelau Arrangement for the Management of the South Pacific Longline Fishery and harvest strategy regulations being developed by the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC).
MMR received strong regional support for taking the lead on transitioning from an effort-based system to a QMS.
“The focus is to restructure and control the longline fishery to meet our commitment to work with other states to ensure effective conservation and management of albacore and bigeye stocks,” said Ben Ponia, MMR secretary. “We are hoping this system will be adopted throughout the Pacific region. The Cook Islands can now set a precedent as one of the significant longline albacore fisheries in the region, and one of the few with a bigeye fishery.”
Development of the QMS has been a collaborative effort with the New Zealand Ministry of Primary Industries, the Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) and the Pacific Community (SPC), taking several years to bring to fruition. The Tokelau Arrangement nations – Cook Islands, Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, Niue, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu – proposed to rein in catch and effort levels in the South Pacific albacore fishery, after SPC predicted fishing at current levels had a high risk of pushing albacore stocks over the edge in the next 20 years. Under the FFA Future of Fisheries Roadmap, forum leaders committed to replacing effort controls (access fees) on fishing with catch-based quota systems within 10 years.
MMR said it believes the QMS will promote transparency and availability of catch data and limits. Fisheries observers are placed on longline vessels to collect independent data on fishing activity. The Cook Islands now aims to increase observer coverage to 20 percent of sea days to make the available data statistically relevant for management planning.
Replacing the 2012 regulations, which were based on set license fees for domestic and foreign longline fishing vessels, the 2016 QMS regulations sets out a total allowable catch (TAC) and total allowable commercial catch (TACC) for albacore and bigeye tuna for each calendar year from 1 January.
The albacore TAC has been set at 9,750 metric tons (MT), well below the peak catch of 10,680 MT caught in 2012. The TAC for bigeye tuna, meanwhile, will be 3,500 MT under the regulations. In addition to license fees, fishing vessels will now pay NZD 250 (USD 176, EUR 169) per MT of quota for albacore and bigeye and each vessel will be assigned a minimum catch quota.
The Cook Islands tuna fishery has typically consisted of longline vessels targeting South Pacific albacore servicing the canneries of Pago Pago and Apia. A small domestic fresh fish fleet operates out of Rarotonga, supplying the local market and some foreign exports. Locally based fishing vessels are exempted from purchasing a minimum quota mix.
A stock assessment on South Pacific albacore was conducted in 2015 by the Pacific Community’s Oceanic Fisheries Program (OFP) and concluded that overfishing is not occurring and the stock is currently not overfished.
The total catch of albacore from longlining within the Cook Islands in 2015 was 3,271 MT. The 2015 Western Central Pacific Fisheries Convention Area (WCPF-CA) catch of South Pacific albacore was 68,594 MT.
The bigeye tuna stock status is of particular concern and is a key species caught in both the longline (as valuable adults) and purse seine fishery (mostly as juveniles).
A stock assessment on bigeye tuna, conducted in 2014 by the Pacific Community’s OFP, concluded that bigeye tuna is currently overfished and overfishing is occurring.
The total catch of bigeye in the Cook Islands in 2015 was 517 MT in the longline fishery and 96 MT in the purse seine fishery. The Western Central Pacific Fisheries Convention Area (WCPF-CA) catch of bigeye was 134,084 MT. Approximately 48,700 MT of bigeye was taken in the purse seine fishery and 64,000 MT in the longline fishery.
The Cook Islands currently has a maximum limit of 50 longline vessels licensed to fish within its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) at any one time.
