December 7, 2016 — PAGO PAGO, American Samoa — While the new six-year South Pacific Tuna Treaty does not appear to provide any special recognition or benefits to the American Samoa’s tuna industry, Commerce Department Director Keniseli Lafaele says the Treaty is a way forward and the territory hopes to find opportunities under the Treaty that will benefit American Samoa.
Lafaele is also hopeful that the incoming administration of US President-elect Donald Trump will concentrate more on finding ways for the locally based US flag boats to compete in the global tuna industry.
Signed Dec. 3 (Saturday) during a ceremony in Nadi, Fiji, the new Treaty is valid through 2022 and is between the US and 16 Pacific Island countries. It allows the US purse seiner fleet to fish in waters of these Pacific countries. The Treaty was approved in “principle” during another round of negotiations held in Auckland, New Zealand in June this year.
Signing of the new Treaty came two days before the start Monday in Fiji of the week-long Western and Central Pacific Fishery Committee meeting in Nadi, for which American Samoa has a delegation that is part of the U.S. delegation.
Leading the local delegation is Department of Marine and Wildlife Resources director Dr. Ruth Matagi-Tofiga, who told Samoa News that signing of the new Treaty “is indeed an exciting occasion, being that it took 7 years to sign the Treaty with amendments.”
And the Treaty is “important for American Samoa because it sets operational terms and conditions for the U.S. tuna purse seine fleet to fish in waters under the jurisdiction of the Pacific Island Parties, which cover a wide swath of the Western and Central Pacific Ocean,” Matagi-Tofiga said via email from Nadi, over the weekend responding to Samoa News inquiries.
She points out that the U.S. purse seine fleet “operates under the highest commercial standard and subject to strict U.S. enforcement authorities… that curtails illegal and unregulated fishing.”