Comments: Tuna may go the way of cod: a collapsed fishery

Pacific Tuna Time bomb

Fish is as vital to Pacific Island economies as oil is to the Middle East. For most Pacific Island countries fish is a huge contributor to their foreign revenue earning resources.

The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission is the body vested with the powers to manage and conserve Pacific tuna stocks. The Western and Central Pacific tuna fishing industry recorded landings exceeding two million metric tons for 2006, valued at about US$3 billion annually. Despite warnings since 2001 that strong measures are needed to conserve stocks, Pacific tuna continues to be over exploited.

And what does the Pacific get from the billions of dollars in tuna revenue? – a mere 6% return for a principal economic resource. Almost all of the money goes to Distant Water Fishing Nations (DWFN’s).

Pacific people have fished the ocean for thousands of years, managing traditional fishing grounds with sustainability . Today in the Pacific, more than 90% of our tuna is caught by the fleets of Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China, USA, Philippines and the EU. These foreign fishing fleets take 900% more than locally based vessels. What’s worse is that these foreign fleets have fished out other oceans and are moving into the Pacific in search of the last tuna.

There are numerous examples around the world of what will happen to this precious resource if foreign fishing fleets are allowed to continue with business as usual.

The over-exploitation and mismanagement of fisheries has already led to some major fisheries collapses. In 1992 Canada’s cod fishery collapsed off Newfoundland. The Canadian government ignored scientific warnings and stood by as catches fell from 233,000 tonnes to zero in two years. Forty thousand jobs in the industry were lost. The fishing communities of Canada are still struggling to recover and the marine ecosystem is still in a state of collapse.

The North and Baltic Sea’s cod fisheries are also close to collapsing and this year the Indian and Pacific Oceans have experienced relatively low catches.

The humble tuna that has given the Pacific peoples food, jobs, education, roads, health care and life, faces an imminent crisis. And what do we do? Haggle over the science when it is supposed to guide us. Can we trust the science on this matter? Who knows exactly how much tuna we had in the ocean before industrial fishing began? What is the level or rate of pirate fishing going on in the Pacific? Most boats fish without observers on board, satellites can't weigh the fish in the holds, and many island governments, with huge areas of ocean to cover, have only one patrol boat. Have these factors been taken into account in setting catch levels? With so many unknowns where is the precautionary wisdom in the decisions we are making? Should we open the doors to more investment blindly when what we really must do is cut down the number of boats catching our fish?

The Pacific is at a crossroads. One path leads to sustainable and fair fisheries, a healthy marine environment and stable prosperous island communities. The other path leads to the collapse of our major tuna fishery and loss of livelihood and food supply for the people of the Pacific. We have an opportunity to halt the destruction of the Pacific Ocean’s ecosystem and support development without destruction in Pacific fisheries. Instead of plundering the Pacific in a race to catch the last tuna, we need to take urgent measures to ensure that our children and their children continue to reap the benefits of our most valuable marine resource.

A recent study in the Pacific Economic Bulletin shows that cutting the number of fishing vessels in the Pacific can radically result in increased profits of between 10% and 40% of gross revenue. [T. Kompas and T. N. Che "Economic profit and optimal effort in the Western and Central Pacific tuna fisheries" Pacific Economic Bulletin, May 2007]

Four key measures will go a long way to protecting our tuna and our long term profits:
? we need to cut tuna catches by 50% - going beyond the reductions already recommended by the Science committee;
? ban all at-sea transhipments in the Pacific - which will stop thousands of tons of tuna being smuggled out of the region;
? set up no-take marine reserves in the high seas - to allow depleted stocks to truly recover and;
? eradicate pirate fishing - which steals up to 15% of the region's tuna.

The Pacific must stand together to ensure that the wisdom of precaution prevails, without it short term greed for quick profits will sell out our future wealth.

Nilesh Goundar
Greenpeace Australia Pacific's
Oceans Team leader

Nilesh Goundar

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