August 16, 2016 — WELLINGTON, New Zealand — The money Pacific countries lose to illegal, unreported and unregulated tuna fishing in the region is estimated at $616 million, according to figures provided by the Forum Fisheries Agency.
Under an international agreement via the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, also known as the Tuna Commission, 34 countries including the United States have signed an agreement to stomp out IUU fishing.
HAWAII (March 17, 2016) — The cost of illegal fishing in the western pacific may be much lower than believed. Previous estimates ranged up to $2.4-billion dollars a year. But this week, an independent, European funded study puts that figure at about a billion dollars a year, most of that in tuna. And, as we hear from Neal Conan in the Pacific News minute, the study also challenges beliefs, as to who’s responsible.
“We imagine vast fleets of pirate boats,” said James Movick, director General of the Forum Fisheries Agency. “The evidence doesn’t support that.”
The evidence was gathered over two years by an Australian company -MRAG Asia Pacific which concluded that the biggest culprits are licensed boats that underreport their catch. It put losses to pirates at just 4% of the total.
March 15, 2016 — WELLINGTON, New Zealand – An independent report released by the Forum Fisheries Agency has for the first time put a value on the amount of illegal, unreported and unregulated tuna fishing in the Pacific.
The report, which took two years to complete, indicates the amount of lost revenue annually in the region is around US$616 million dollars, or just over 306 million tonnes.
It also shows most offending is due to misreporting by licensed fleets, with unlicensed fishing vessels only making up four percent of offending.