Tropical WCPO tuna fishery management arrangements

I prepared the following presentation for a Policy Dialogue Meeting between national representatives of the fisheries administrations of FFA (Forum Fisheries Agency) member countries, and the European Commission (DG MARE and DG DEVCO) under the EU co-funded PEUMP project.

The meeting itself took place just after the first Regional Fisheries Ministers meeting in Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia, on 21st June 2019. This presentation itself was made most excellently by Pamela Maru on behalf of FFA members (using this script as a guide rather than a straitjacket). 

The Pacific is Big – 

All the global landmasses could fit into the Pacific ocean basin.  

High seas do not dominate - 

The tropical Western and Central Pacific Ocean has a much lower proportion of high seas than other ocean regions

We talk about being Small Island States with developing economies -

But we are also Large Ocean States with fully-exploited tuna fisheries

Half of the tuna catch is still taken by non-LOS (large ocean state) flags -

If we want to use the fisheries in our region to drive our economic development in and around our own waters, everyone needs to recognise that our tuna stocks are already fished to their targets or limits, and SIDS either have to take a bigger percentage of the existing catch or control a bigger percentage of the existing fisheries-related activity. We can’t just go out and take more fish. We have to gradually localise a foreign-dominated tuna industry.

Most of the best skipjack purse-seine fishing grounds are in the equatorial western Pacific which are covered mainly by Nauru Agreement (PNA) EEZs

And most of the best southern longline fishing grounds are in the subequatorial western Pacific which are covered largely by Tokelau Arrangement(TKA)  EEZs

When we say that stocks are being fully fished, this is what we mean: 

The two main target stocks of the purse-seine and southern longline fisheries are fished close to their Target Reference Points – the point at which they achieve our management objectives – to maintain a stock biomass which supports economically viable catch rates and which remains fully biologically sustainable.

These targets are conservative. This is for several reasons – the main one being that the management system needs to be fault-tolerant. There is a lot of uncertainty in the stock assessments, which for tuna are driven strongly by environmentally-dependent recruitment factors, and for the southern longline fishery especially we are not confident about the data available from vessels.  Another reason for conservatism is that we have a better chance of avoiding excessive bycatch by using mitigation measures – for example by limiting FADs in the purse-seine fishery, and preventing the use of wire tracelines and sharklines in the longline fisheries.

(This is a plot of different stock assessment model runs showing the likely range of variation in current depletion of spawning biomass (SB) versus unfished on the x-axis, and fishing mortality versus the mortality that would achieve theoretical MSY on the y-axis. The arrow points to the median value, which is used to guide management responses. The dashed line is the biomass depletion target reference point (as agreed by TKA for albacore and by PNA (and at the time of presentation, WCPFC) for skipjack).

This is the relative status of stocks in each tropical tRFMO region, in all three oceans. 

Some call this plot the great green tower. Not only is the western and central Pacific the most productive region for tropical tuna, greater than the other three tuna regions put together, but all of the stocks are in the green relative to their precautionary reference points. 

When it comes to this region’s performance in limiting bycatch, one indicator is the use of FADs, which are associated with much higher levels of purse-seine bycatch than free-school sets. The plot on the right of the screen shows that there is a much smaller percentage of catch taken from FAD sets in this region than others. Over 50% of purse-seine catch in this region is from bycatch-friendly free schools. 

How did we end up with such a healthy fishery?

1. We came late to the global tuna table – 

• Although we are close to one of the most heavily fished [not counting the Mediterranean] coasts in the world – that of southeast and east Asia – the insular Pacific has possibly been the last of the major ocean areas to be exploited by long range tuna fisheries;

2. The second reason is zone-based, as opposed to flag-based, management

• FFA was set up in 1978 specifically to do zone-based management – to help Pacific Island coastal states use their newly gained rights under the law of the sea to control industrial fishing vessels flagged to distant-water fishing nations. At that time, the purse-seine fishery was just starting to take off, with vessels mainly from Japan and USA.

• When FFA started, flag-based management was the norm, and DWFNs carved up tuna fishing opportunities between themselves according to catch history, regardless of where the fish was caught.

• This region has been assisted in pursuing zone-based management because of geography. The most productive tuna fishing grounds fall within EEZs. And this is one of the main reasons we have been able to resist most outside exploitative interests and maintain the healthiest of tuna fisheries. 

3. Currently, Pacific Island tuna fisheries objectives are generally in line with conservation objectives

• Keep catch rates high, to assist entry-level developing fishing enterprises – requires high biomass
• Limit fishing opportunities for foreign vessels, in order to keep the value of access high
• Avoid excessive impact on artisanal catch rates from industrial fishing
• Limit FAD fishing which competes for mahimahi, wahoo etc used by local food fisheries

How does this affect our approach to WCPFC?

• Zone Based Management for tuna fisheries is most effective when organised subregionally into groups of like-minded coastal States. 
• If these states EEZs cover most of the range of a fishery, acting together gives them more control, and the collective clout to replace flag-based distant water exploitation-based objectives with zone-based local objectives
• WCPFC convention Article 8 on the compatibility of management measures, requires the WCPFC to ensure that broader measures are also compatible with CMMs established by coastal states and by subregional arrangements.

Even so, the compatibility principle is often ignored by the RFMO. For example, WCPFC no longer implements the High Seas Pockets closure that is part of the PNA 3rd Implementing Arrangement.

We have several subregional tuna fishery management arrangements involving FFA members, at varying degrees of implementation. 

• The PNA's Palau Arrangement, which governs the Purse Seine and Longline Vessel Day Schemes is the most advanced, with zone limits, allocation-trading and pooling mechanisms, and a centralised reporting and information system. 
• The more southerly Tokelau Arrangement has agreed zone limits for south Pacific albacore and an interim TRP for that stock but has yet to finalise its management scheme for the southern longline fishery. 
• The South Pacific Group (SPG) is currently an informal group for non-PNA SIDS to work together on maximising the value of their limited purse-seine fishery rights, and is also starting to talk about southern longline fishery management.

In a nutshell, FFA members work together to advance their interests.

• at the WCPFC regional+ level – using ZBM/coastal state common interests to drive fisheries management outcomes in a direction that supports the interests of developing coastal States society rather than developed distant water fishing companies.
• FFA regional level – provides a platform for fostering common interests in standards for reporting, for monitoring, for surveillance, for CDS and PSM etc
• PNA/TKA subregional level – fosters common interests in exercising rights for specific fisheries, purse-seine, tropical longline, southern longline. These arrangements actually perform the management functions of RFMOs to varying degrees. 
• National level – pursuing development of flag state and processing interests, and exercising sovereign coastal state control systems. This is where the buck stops.