February 5, 2015 — In an effort to help the local longline fishing fleet, which is “facing a potential economic collapse” the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council (WCPFC) will consider during its meeting next month a temporary exemption for longliners, allowing them to fish the “Large Vessel Prohibited Area” (LVPA) of American Samoa’s exclusive economic zone, according to Council officials, who made a presentation last Friday to a Senate committee.
Council executive director Kitty Simmonds along with environmental policy coordinator Eric Kingma, were accompanied by American Samoa’s three members on the Council board during the hearing, where senators were given a briefing which was identical to the Council’s presentation made during a public hearing and attended by some 50 people, including those in the fishing industry.
Kingma explained that the LVPA was established in 2002 to minimize catch competition between large longline vessels — more than 50 feet long — and small longline vessels, including alia.
At the time, there were nearly 40 small longline vessels, while there were several large longliners, some of which came from Hawai’i and California. “So there was a need to separate large vessels from the smaller vessels to provide the opportunity for both fleets to be successful” which resulted in the LVPA, said Kingma.
However, the number of small longline vessels has been drastically reduced since 2002 to mainly alia vessels — and last year, there were no active alia at all, most of them under 40 feet, while there were 19 active large longliners, he said, and noted that the alia vessel's highest year of participation in the fishery was around 2000- 2001, which was the same time that the larger vessels started to come into Pago Pago.
“What we’ve seen over the past decade or so, is that the small vessel fleet has substantially decreased”, he said and explained that information requested with the U.S. National Marine Fishery Service shows there were “zero longline alia” active last year.
He added that the fishing grounds that were reserved in 2002 for small longline alia “is essentially under utilized… because it's not being fished too much by the small vessels”. He also noted that the large longliner fleet numbers have also declined over the years to only 19 active ones in 2014.