Rebuilding Fisheries in the Pacific Islands Region

At this seminar you have heard from FAO and IUCN about fisheries rebuilding in general. Now I would like to focus your attention on the western tropical Pacific – the Pacific Islands Region.

The Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency focuses on tuna fisheries, so that is what I will concentrate on here.

But I will also talk a little about the prospects for rebuilding one of the more commercial coastal fisheries of the region

For us, tuna fisheries are not just about food security but about economic survival.

In the 6 countries and territories you see highlighted on the slide here, tuna fishing accounts for more than 40% of total government revenue. through taxes and resource rents

This means that the tuna fishing grounds within their EEZs are paying for their roads and their schools and all the other infrastructure that improves their basic quality of life. Things that would otherwise only be available through foreign aid, or through a fully-developed cash economy.

There are few other employment and development opportunities on these particular small islands, and the ocean is their greatest resource.

So keeping these fisheries healthy and productive is of utmost importance to us.

The main point I want to draw from this slide is that the revenue that these countries make from tuna fisheries in their waters, COMBINED, is far less than the turnover of a single big tuna company.

So when PSIDS come to international meetings on the UN Fish Stocks Agreement, and RFMO negotiations on the management of regional tuna stocks, we sometimes get a little distressed when the countries that own these industries block our proposals for more conservative and precautionary management measures. The health and productivity of these stocks is far more significant to us than it is to them.

The previous slide was about economic context and the reason why we want to maintain or rebuild our tuna stocks.

This slide is about where we want to rebuild them to.

I won’t go into the scientific details – suffice to say that tuna managers would recognise this as a modified Kobe Plot. The overfishing index on the vertical axis shows the ratio of current Fishing mortality to the Fishing mortality at MSY ("Maximum Sustainable Yield"). And the stock size index along the horizontal axis shows how the current biomass compares to the biomass there would be if there had never been any fishing.

So far so good – it is a useful way for scientists to demonstrate the status of the stock.

But when we add reference points then it becomes a useful dashboard for fishery managers as well.

You may have already noticed that only one of these Western and Central tropical tuna stocks is in the red – and that is bigeye tuna

And thus, by some interpretations, only bigeye needs rebuilding.

The minimum requirement to rebuild this stock is the Limit Reference Point. And WCPFC has agreed that the LRP for all four of these stocks should keep the adult or spawning biomass above 20% of the estimated unfished adult biomass. That is the vertical line on the plot that separates the red block from the rest.

So it looks like we’re doing pretty well – especially when the preliminary results from this year’s stock assessment suggest that the bigeye stock status indicators are already improving.

But rebuilding to the LRP is only the start. The Limit Reference Point defines the absolute minimum that we should let any stock get to. The LRP is the point where drastic action should be triggered.

What we really want to do, and what we are required to do under UNFSA for highly migratory stocks, is to keep stocks at the Target Reference Point. The TRP is the point at which the agreed management objective is achieved.

And this is something that is difficult for RFMOs to agree on, because different governments have different objectives. Some want to maximise the attractiveness of their EEZs to distant water fishing partners. Some want to achieve the maximum possible sustainable catch. Others want to make sure there is enough fish in the water to keep catch rates high enough for a limited number of operators to make an unsubsidised living.

However, in our region FFA members have at least managed to agree on interim TRPs for both the skipjack and south Pacific albacore stocks

These two stocks are the most economically important stocks to FFA equatorial and southern member countries.

But both of these TRPs are well above the MSY level the skipjack and albacore stocks. [MSY for SKJ is around 23% of unfished biomass, and for albacore around 14%. But the TRPs are 50% for skipjack and 45% for albacore]

Why do we want these stocks to be rebuilt to a higher level of biomass than is needed to produce maximum sustainable yield?

There are several reasons, but the main reason agreed by all FFA members is that we want these stocks to be fished not only sustainably, but profitably, and in a way that also takes account of the needs of our coastal fishing communities. The albacore stock may technically be fully sustainably if we fish it at MSY – at 14% of its natural abundance – but 86% depletion will cause a massive reduction in catch rate. An 86% reduction wipes out not only local fishing communities, but also any unsubsidised commercial vessels. 

A 50% reduction against prehistoric catch rates is seen as a pretty fair trade-off when the fishery also finances half of your public infrastructure.

And this is why I have put Article 5b of the WCPFC Convention on the screen.

This mirrors Article 5b of the UN Fish Stocks Agreement. Now many States only look at the first clause of this paragraph, and say that restoring stocks to MSY is good enough.

And many people worry that the second clause, about qualifying MSY with economic factors, is an excuse for overfishing. Or that “including the special requirements of SIDS” is another way of saying “let them overfish if they are extremely dependent”.

But this is clearly not the case when we do a bioeconomic analysis. To us, qualifying MSY with environmental, economic and SIDS social factors means stocks need to be maintained or restored to levels that will almost always be considerably above biological MSY.

And while we’re on the text I would also draw your attention to the last part, where subregional minimum standards also need to be taken into account. If a group of countries in the region have already agreed to a minimum set of standards for a fishery, then the RFMO has to take notice of them, and in our region this one of the mechanisms that has helped WCPFC to adopt standards first developed by a smaller group of FFA member countries – the Parties to the Nauru Agreement.

These have included the interim Skipjack TRP, the FAD closure period, the requirement for 100% observer coverage, the requirement for full tuna catch retention and – for several years, the closure of the two western equatorial Pacific high seas pockets.

We’re currently trying to persuade non-FFA WCFPC members to take into account a subregional minimum standard agreed by a new subregional Arrangement – the Tokelau Arrangement – and this is the South Pacific albacore Target Reference Point.

I will illustrate this with a quick look at a draft table we are going to present to the WCPFC Scientific Committee in August. (This is based on a paper that was presented to the WCPFC nearly 18 months ago)

This table explains some of the reasoning behind the subregional Tokelau Arrangement decision to set the southern Albacore TRP at 45% of the unfished spawning biomass.

In the table we are looking at a range of options, from pure biological MSY in option 8 at the bottom of the table, up to Maximum Economic Yield in Option 1.

Remember that our agreed option its Option 2. We are showing the alternatives to illustrate the consequences if WCPFC decides to go down other paths.

The stock is currently around the level of Option 5 – at 37% of unfished biomass. However it is not in equilibrium at this point because fishing effort is still too high to stabilise the biomass at this level, and it would actually need a 23% cut in effort to keep the biomass where it is.

If we take no action, and don’t cut fishing effort at all, the biomass will stabilise around the level of option 7. Catch rates will be 14% down on today, and the annual catch will be 28% less. And there will be a 20% risk of breaching the LRP

Option 8 - keeping the biomass around 14% of unfished levels, would achieve MSY, and this is what a couple of non-FFA WCPFC have implied is what they want, when they quote the Law of the Sea as mandating management “according to MSY”.

If you run your eye along the option 8 line, it explains the results of managing the south Pacific albacore stock at MSY without “qualifying this with relevant economic factors”.

- For a start, driving the biomass down to biological MSY will more than halve current catch rates

- Under the change in effort column you can see that the size of the fleet would need to more than double from the current level. If there are 600 vessels in the fishery right now, we would need to expand that to 1500 vessels in order to reach MSY 

- and the sustainable total catch from the stock would be 22% less than it is right now. [It may be called “maximum” sustainable yield, but it is achieved under equilibrium conditions, and the stock is not currently in equilibrium]

- finally, the risk of breaching the Limit Reference Point for the stock is not “very low”, as is required by UNFSA.

Option 8 – managing this stock to biological MSY is obviously undesirable from an economic point of view. In fact it is not even economically achievable, unless there are dramatic increases in fishing efficiency. Everyone would be bankrupt, long before the biomass dropped to that level. The trouble is, some distant water fishing countries seem to want to keep trying, and we’re not sure how their vessels can possibly afford it. 

It may be worth noting that maximum economic yield – option one - is not socially achievable. We’d need to take three quarters of the vessels out of the fishery and the fishery production would be more than halved. But it would certainly create a small number of very wealthy vessel-owners.

I might finish this off by mentioning one coastal fisheries example. This is not a transboundary fishery – it is not a UN Fish Stocks Agreement fishery – and that means that it gets a lot less scientific and management attention than more glamourous fisheries that involve foreign negotiations and international collaborations..

At the same time, in some countries the sea cucumber fishery is sometimes more valuable than their tuna fisheries, and can take more biomass out of the water. And it also injects cash directly into rural economies when it is managed properly.

The trouble is, sea-cucumber stocks are overexploited almost worldwide and are one of the primary targets for coastal fishery rebuilding efforts in many Pacific Island countries, especially Melanesia.

One of the problems with the lack of research is knowing where we actually might need to rebuild them to. There are few formal stock assessments for these species, and very little monitoring.

However, our sister agency – SPC, in collaboration with worldfish and others – has been developing what might be called “rules of thumb” to help coastal fishery managers and communities to decide what a “healthy stock” might look like.

This knowledge has been developed over more than 30 years of research and wide-ranging underwater field surveys in all Pacific Island countries. It has led to advice like the table on the screen here, which indicates the density per hectare that you might expect to see during a manta tow across the right habitat, for a number of species. It is a rough guide to what coastal communities might aspire and rebuild to.

The products of this fishery fetch very high prices in their target markets, and as production drops in one area, it becomes economically viable for another less prolific area to start exporting.

This slide suggests that the trade is running out of places to go, as the trade moves from the blue coastal areas, through the spectrum to the red areas over time.

The pressure to harvest is going to grow, and that is going to make rebuilding these stocks even more difficult, despite the fact that rebuilding them above current levels would produce far greater economic benefit.

One of the results of this pressure has been the recent appearance of boats like this in several Pacific Island countries. 

They are small, wooden-hulled vessels out of South East Asia, fishing for coastal species – particularly sea cucumber - and they are entirely outside the normal system.

They are not licenced in the countries where they fish, they do not carry vessel monitoring systems, they don’t show up on our radar, and they are not even flagged in the country where they originate.

And judging by the fact that most of them look new, they could well be the product of a massively subsidised boatbuilding exercise

Robbing Pacific Island reefs is obviously very lucrative for them. We know of one case where the same individual has been arrested, punished and repatriated three times

But I didn’t come here to complain about a new blue plague on the Pacific Islands

The point I want to make here is that the traditional Pacific Island response to coastal overfishing – a temporary moratorium in order to rebuild stocks – was making great progress for a while. Stocks in places like Papua New Guinea have been rebuilding nicely, and people were looking forward to the harvest reopening. But in the face of these unscrupulous externalities the use of geographical moratoria to fast-track rebuilding makes us vulnerable.

I think there are lessons to be learned here. We need to look at more active mechanisms for rebuilding some of the most valuable coastal export fisheries.

Normal service will be resumed in due course

I've neglected this blog for a while.

When I was working for the Nauru Fisheries and Marine Resources Authority, most of my spare writing energy went into the NFMRA website, and when I left NFMRA I entered a corporate environment where most of my output is restricted or has to be subject to corporate approval - which does not make for free and easy blogging on fisheries management subjects.

I'll try and pick up the pace again.

Finally - my MPA runneth over

At last - somebody has done the work and provided some proof that the MPA spillover effect is real.

Hugo Harrison and others have just put out a paper in Current Biology which indicates that at their study site  in Australia "reserves, which account for just 28% of the local reef area, produced approximately half of all juvenile recruitment to both reserve and fished reefs within 30 km". They conclude - and I concur - that this provides "compelling evidence that adequately protected reserve networks can make a significant contribution to the replenishment of populations on both reserve and fished reefs at a scale that benefits local stakeholders." 

[see Harrison et al (in press) Larval Export from Marine Reserves and the Recruitment Benefit for Fish and Fisheries. Current Biology (2012), doi:10.1016/j.cub.2012.04.008]

I have always maintained that the precautionary approach should be applied to MPAs with fisheries goals - that the risk of displaced fishermen collapsing the stocks in surrounding areas may outweigh any benefits that MPAs may produce in terms of providing recruitment to surrounding fisheries. MPAs with fisheries management objectives need to be accompanied by firm fishery management measures in surrounding areas, or alternative fishing opportunities or livelihoods. But usually MPAs are promoted as a substitute for fishery management measures, especially in developing countries where it is difficult to institute these. I was concerned that the downside could well outweigh the upside of fisheries MPAs, both in terms of maintaining overall stock biomass, and in terms of maintaining community livelihoods.

Everyone accepts that MPAs lead to recovery of non-highly migratory fish populations within their boundaries, and can thus satisfy conservation goals. But for the first time we are seeing good evidence that the "MPA spillover effect" may well compensate for the increased fishing pressure on surrounding areas, and may thus contribute positively towards fishery sustainability goals. If 50% of the recruitment in the total area can be provided from an MPA covering 27% of this area in Australia - a country with the most stringent fishery management regime in the world - then in countries where the stocks are in worse shape the relative contribution of mature MPAs to recruitment in surrounding areas is likely to be even greater.

In short, the requirements of the precautionary approach - where an action that is suspected to be deleterious needs to be subject to a certain level of proof before that action is taken - are being satisfied when it comes to MPAs with fisheries objectives.

Of course, to be good sources of larval recruitment for surrounding areas, the fish in these reserves need to be protected from other deleterious impacts and not just from fishing. They need to be protected from pollution, agricultural runoff, reclamation, oil exploration and substrate mining amongst other things.

But by now, of course, everyone recognises this to be a no-brainer. Don't they?

FADs - are they all bad?

I just read an article published in the American Samoan press in 2011 called “Beehives of the Ocean” that puts the case firmly for having as many Fish Aggregation Devices (FADs) in your waters as possible (“at least 200” for each large vessel) and wishes to provide balanced information in the face of the “internal and external forces that wish to ban the use of FADs”.

On the other side is a groundswell of popular opinion stirred up particularly by Greenpeace, that FADs are bad because fishing around them leads to more unwanted fish (bycatch) and smaller tuna being caught (FADs are a haven for the young and the despised of the fishy world), therefore FADs should be banned. Full stop.

Now I can understand someone in American Samoa running the flag up for FADs – after all Pago Pago is where the US purse-seine fleet (or at least the fraction of the US fleet that is US-built and US-owned) lands its catch, and the US vessels use FADs more than most other fleets – a characteristic they have in common with fleets that started life in the eastern Pacific.

And I can understand Greenpeace trying to shoot that flag down. They have seen regional fisheries commissions around the world serially unable to agree to measures to effectively curb tuna fisheries when overfishing occurs. Regional tuna commissions usually lack the legal clout of national fisheries administrations, and suffer from an even greater lack of unanimity of purpose. Complex, finely-tuned measures designed to maximise yield while minimising the risk of biological harm are difficult to implement under such conditions, and “blunt instruments”, such as complete bans on certain gear-types like FADs seem to be of more immediate practical benefit.

So is this all rhetoric? On both sides?

I have been waiting a while for the Secretariat of the Pacific Community to produce one of their Policy Briefs on the FAD issue. SPC has recently published some balanced, scientifically-considered, advice, in its February Fisheries Newsletter. However, I’d like to add my own two cents worth.

Now I can’t claim 6 generations of fishermen in my family and 40 years of fishing experience, like the author of the Samoa News editorial. I can however claim over 30 year’s direct experience with FADs. For example, I have been known to take a personal part in the occasional FAD deployment, I’ve budgeted several hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years for inshore FAD infrastructure, I’ve analysed fisheries data on the effects of FADs, I’ve been responsible for projects to assess the cost-effectiveness and impacts of FADs, and I’ve also been involved in drafting FAD-controlling legislation, developing policies, writing management plans and in international negotiations concerning the use of FADs. In short, I’m not a specialist in the subject, but I’m relatively FAD-literate.

My view is this: FADs are no more intrinsically “bad” or “good” than any other piece of fishing gear. All fishing gear is designed to make it easier for humans to catch fish. But if there are too many people catching, or if the gear is too large-scale compared to the size of the fish stock, or if the size of the fish stock reduces because of non-fishing impacts, then any fishing gear can become “damaging”.

Even fishing with your bare hands – for example collecting intertidal shellfish – can become a problem if you do too much of it, and if the resources you are collecting are not “resilient” (consider: it’s easy to pick up every last giant clam on the reef top – giant clams need to expose themselves to sunlight to survive – giant clam populations are not resilient. But some organisms are more resilient. Would you be able to catch every last trochus, with the juveniles hidden in crevices and under rocks? For the ultimate in resilience, how about trying to catch every crown of thorns starfish? Mankind has made enough attempts to eradicate those).

FADs have real advantages under certain circumstances:

• They can minimise searching time by boat-users. And if that boat is a powered boat then less fuel may be used. FADs may even make it possible to use unpowered boats – paddle or sail-powered, where an engine would otherwise be necessary to search for fish. Thus FADs can be considered “carbon-friendly”

• Reduced searching time also means more time is available in subsistence communities – of which there are many in the Pacific Islands – for other activities, once the basic protein needs of the family have been met. Under the right circumstances, inshore FADs can be considered “development-friendly”

• Nearshore FAD-fishing can provide alternative livelihoods and food sources for people who are trying to rehabilitate or reduce fishing effort on reef or lagoon fisheries. Under the right circumstances FADS can be considered “MPA-friendly”

• FADs can increase the catch per unit effort for certain types of fish. Sometimes dramatically. For example a purse-seine set on a FAD or other floating object in PNA waters can yield an average of 50% more skipjack, by weight, than a similar set on a free-school. (This is not a hard rule: Setting purse seine nets around FADs produces less yellowfin tuna than free school sets, and in the far western Pacific FADs actually produce a lower tonnage of fish per set than free schools, perhaps because the fish caught around FADs are smaller).

And of course FADs have disadvantages under other circumstances:

• The very increase in catch per unit effort that improves the efficiency of fishing can more quickly contribute to overfishing if market incentives, regulatory deficiencies, and poor stock status conspire to put a fish stock in a vulnerable state. For example, purse-seine sets around FADs can catch over 6 times as much bigeye tuna than free-school sets;

• Purse-seine catches around FADs contain a greater number of species than sets made around free swimming schools of tuna. And since purse-seiners retain only tuna, those other species become bycatch – usually discarded.

• Purse-seine FAD-sets produce smaller tuna, on average, than free schools. As well as increasing the risk of recruitment overfishing (through lower spawning potential), smaller fish have a lower value per unit weight and are sometimes unsaleable. You may catch more fish but they may not be worth as much;

• Purse-seining is a surface fishing method and the community of marine creatures around FADs is much more diverse than in free schools: thus purse-seine fishing around FADs is likely to catch more surface-swimming non-tuna species than other fishing methods around FADs, or than purse-seining on free schools of tuna. Simply put: the surface biota contains a relatively high number of vulnerable species – think sunlight-dependent and air-breathing species like turtles, dolphins, whale sharks etc

So how do we weigh up the value or the horror of FADs in terms of these pros and cons?

The simplest way is to bear in mind that there are essentially two types of FAD, depending on who is using them, and how.

1. “Oceanic” FADs – usually freely-drifting “d-FADs”, set far from shore, and used by large-scale (in the Pacific Islands region, usually foreign) vessels fishing for tuna, usually with purse-seine nets (although pole and liners and troll vessels can also benefit from oceanic FADs).

2. “Coastal” FADs – usually anchored or tethered “t-FADs”, close outside the reef (within outboard or canoe range), and used by artisanal, local boats fishing with hook and line, and fully utilising the whole range of species caught.

I will leave it up to you to decide which kind is most “sustainable”, and under what circumstances.

The important thing to remember is that FADs are used in different situations, and while FADs may have unacceptable consequences in certain fisheries, in other circumstances they may be extremely beneficial, particularly in developing country artisanal fisheries.

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Pacific Island action on oceanic FADs

This is probably the time to point out that the countries Party to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) have decided that cutting down on the use of d-FADs by industrial tuna purse-seiners in the western tropical Pacific will be part of their strategy for reducing fishing mortality on bigeye tuna to the levels scientifically advised to be sustainable.

The logic is simple. A purse-seine net set on a d-FAD in PNA waters will catch on average 600% more bigeye tuna than a free-school set. Reducing d-FAD use is one of the more effective ways of reducing fishing mortality on bigeye tuna – a species which is experiencing overfishing in the Western Tropical Pacific – without unduly impacting catches of skipjack (the main target species). The idea is to reduce the use of FADs by purse-seiners and get them fishing on free schools of skipjack – and if everybody has to follow the same rules there should be no unfairness.

This logic was also picked up by the entire membership of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission in 2008 when the Commission agreed not only to a 3-month annual closed season for FADs, but to actually start the Pacific-wide ban a year ahead of PNA’s ban.

The first year with a FAD closed season – two months in 2009 – did not appear to have a huge impact though. The PNA ruling that all purse-seiners in PNA waters should have an observer aboard was not yet in effect and, judging by the number of pre-dawn sets made (it is normally only useful to set a purse-seine net in the dark if it is around a d-FAD – free schools have to be spotted by eye), and the average species composition of the catch, many vessels were apparently still using FADs in defiance of the closed season agreed to by their flag states.

However, the results are now in for the second western and central Pacific purse-seine FAD closed season (Jul-Sep 2010), and this one does appear to have had a significant effect. The average catch composition changed, and in addition many vessels seem to have also reduced their FAD use before and after the closed season. The results have been considered by PNA countries, who have jointly decided to increase the length of the purse-seine FAD closed season to 4 months in 2012, with an option to extend this up to 6 months in future.

The third purse-seine FAD closed season was in effect from July 1st to September 30th 2011 and the results are being analysed with close interest.

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The future of drifting FADs

Some governments are considering a complete ban on d-FADs as one of the potential future options, if the other strands in the regional bigeye tuna fishing mortality reduction strategy do not produce the desired results.

These other strands include preventing the purse-seiners that they licence from fishing in the high seas to the east of the region (where bigeye tuna turn up in purse-seine nets in larger proportions than in the west), requiring full retention aboard of all small tuna caught (small bigeye were often discarded, and retention introduces an economic incentive for trying to avoid catching too many of them), as well as ramping up port sampling and observer coverage (small bigeye and small yellowfin are sometimes confused in vessel reports).

However, the jury is still out. A complete purse-seine FAD ban might well be a step too far, causing disproportionate hardship to skipjack fisheries for possibly little extra gain in terms of bigeye conservation. Purse-seiners are not the only vessels catching bigeye tuna. In fact longliners catch much more. Over the past 60 years, longliners have taken around 77% of the bigeye tuna caught in the Western and Central Pacific, and purse-seiners around 15% (with the rest being taken by other methods such as pole and lining, and trolling).

It is not completely straightforward though:-

• The purse-seine impact on bigeye has increased recently, simply because purse-seining is a relatively new fishing method in this region, and has grown rapidly. Summed over the last 15 years rather than the last 60 years, the purse-seine share of the bigeye catch has jumped to 27% of the total regional bigeye catch, and longlining has dropped to 64%

• A bigeye tuna caught by a longliner is far more valuable than a bigeye tuna caught by a purse-seiner. For companies or countries that run both purse-seiners and longliners it makes a lot of economic sense to require their purse-seiners to avoid bigeye so they can be caught by their longliners. In addition, longlining is a smaller-scale fishing method and may be seen as a more feasible development path for the Pacific Island private fisheries sector than purse-seining.

However, purse-seine fleets, and the PNA small island countries who are highly dependent upon the rentals they obtain from access by purse-seiners to their waters, might justifiably ask why they should be required to bear most of the burden of bigeye conservation when the far more numerous longline boats face much lighter restrictions. Longliners are not required to have an observer aboard every vessel during every trip, their bycatch to target species ratio is much higher than purse-seining, their reporting compliance is much lower, and their effort levels are not limited (at least not yet).

Fig 1: Annual catch (tonnes) of bigeye tuna in the western and central Pacific
categorised by fishing method
(PL = pole and line, PS = purse-seine, LL=Longline)

Fig 2: Annual catch of bigeye in the western and central Pacific
categorised by catching vessel nationality
(flag states with the top 6 largest catches only)

Market forces

Another part of the PNA strategy to reduce reliance on FADs, and hence bigeye bycatch, by purse-seiners is ecolabelling - using the carrot of the market rather than the stick of regulation. FAD-caught skipjack tuna has been excluded from the Marine Stewardship Council sustainability certification that has been granted to the PNA for skipjack caught on free-schools in their waters.

With the MSC label attached, free school-caught skipjack will have a market advantage over FAD-caught skipjack from PNA waters. Purse-seine vessels that wish to obtain the price premiums and access the markets that the MSC approval unlocks will be able to apply for registration under the PNA programme, provided they are willing and able to follow PNA rules in order to qualify for the label. Strict net-to-cannery documentation and chain of custody controls are being implemented, using observers and inspectors to verify vessel, transport and cannery records, to ensure that FAD or floating object-caught fish is never mixed with free-school caught fish at any point in the supply chain.

The Samoa News editorial reckons “Banning FADs will drive the price of tuna off the charts”. Although it is unlikely that canned skipjack will ever command the same prices as, say, smoked wild salmon or caviar, anyone who has noticed the gourmet cachet that is attached to certain brands of fully-traceable sardines, and who is aware of the increasing price trend for fisheries across the globe, knows that the day may well come when some brands of canned skipjack tuna are considered luxury items.

Is it a bad thing for Pacific Islanders if the price of cannery skipjack increases? It’s not as if Pacific Island nutrition will be affected – after all, Pacific Islanders are not dependent on locally-canned tuna. They either catch their own fresh, or eat cheaper imported canned fish, and with discards now banned, a lot of very cheap fish should be being landed at Pacific Island ports. And tuna purse-seine owners are not without a cent or two – witness the number of vessels that are currently under construction in Asia, intending to enter a Pacific Island regional fishery that is currently very lucrative for Pacific rim businesses.

As far as I can see, an increase in the cannery buying price for skipjack has hugely more benefit for the Pacific than disadvantage. For those countries that cannot support the infrastructure necessary to run their own purse-seine vessels, a higher skipjack tuna price is going to lead to higher resource rentals per unit of catch, and at least three PNA economies are critically dependent on this source of income. For those Pacific Island countries that have their own fishing vessels, the benefits of higher catch values are obvious. And for the resource itself, a tight, well-controlled fishery, producing a highly-traceable, high-quality product using reduced-bycatch fishing methods, has got to be beneficial.

Even the foreign purse-seine companies will benefit, at least those that work within regional standards and thereby on the one hand gain access to premium markets, and on the other hand avoid running foul of ever-more-efficient PNA fishery monitoring, control and surveillance measures.

Pacific island countries with skipjack canneries however may worry that an increasing world price of raw material (landed skipjack tuna) will affect their economic feasibility. But if consumers are prepared to pay more for non-FAD caught skipjack, the increased cost of supply should be offset by increased retail prices. In any case, should we really be aiming for an increasingly high-volume low-value form of production – a mechanism that is really only feasible in low wage-rate economies or those with preferential access to large markets – or should we be trying to maximise the value of the finite natural resources available to us?

As the fisheries sector analysis for the Pacific Plan urged in 2004, “most Pacific Island fish stocks, whether offshore or inshore, are felt to be at their maximum safe level of production, and extra economic benefit is likely to be derived not from increasing overall fishing effort in the region but from (a) developing higher-price markets and higher-value or higher-quality products; (b) Pacific Island vessels substituting for distant water fishing vessels, or encouraging foreign vessels to land fish in Pacific Island countries for value-adding; ... Before trying to increase the economic value of fisheries and aquaculture however, it will be essential for PICTs to consolidate and sustain the value of what they currently have.”

And as the 2010 regional "Future of Fisheries Study" suggested: "Offshore fisheries could support stable high catch rates with healthy tuna resources at levels that maximize benefits for PICTs. Effective use of sovereignty over these resources could leverage much greater economic benefits than at present. An orderly reduction of foreign access and its replacement by genuine locally based investments would see the development of competitive domestic industries. The growing Asian markets and the trend for eco-certification could create opportunities for innovative and alternative tuna products. The effective management of by-catch and the banning of discards could help supply the domestic market with fish at an affordable price"

Restricting the use of d-FADs may have far-reaching effects.