Saving Seafood

News for the Pacific Region

NOAA hearing underscored opposition to marine sanctuary plan

June 5, 2023 — The public hearing in American Samoa about U.S. plans to expand a Pacific marine sanctuary has failed to assuage fears of tuna cannery job losses and further economic decline in the territory, according to workers, business owners and political leaders.

After a decade of lobbying by the Hawaii-based Pacific Remote Islands Coalition, the U.S. government earlier this year said it could double the size of the protected area around uninhabited U.S. islands in the Pacific Ocean, making more ocean area off-limits to fishing fleets.

But the proposal has been greeted with dismay in American Samoa, where residents fear a heavy blow to the economically crucial tuna industry. Dozens of placard-wielding employees of the StarKist cannery in American Samoa protested outside a recent hearing held in Pago Pago by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees protected marine and coastal areas.

“I have seven children between the ages of two and 17, they are all in school, and I have been supporting my family working for StarKist Samoa,” Tanielu Malae, the sole breadwinner for his family, said at the May 25 hearing. “Do the people in Hawaii that made this proposal know what it is like for people like us that did not have proper education if we lose our jobs.”

American Samoa’s Lieutenant Governor, Talauega Eleasalo Ale, who said he was at the hearing as a resident rather than representing the territory’s government, made an emotional appeal to “brothers and sisters” in Hawaii.

Read the full article at Samoa News

Pros and Cons at the NOAA Public Scope Meeting in Am Samoa

May 31, 2023 —  Standing room only crowd attended Thursday’s NOAA hearing on the proposed expansion of the Pacific Remote Island Area (PRIA) and while a few speakers supported the proposal for the sake of conservation, many speakers came out against it saying it would have a negative impact on the cannery and therefore the territory’s economy. Here is a sampling of the comments.

Longtime fisherman and boat builder Maselino Ioane spoke in support of the proposal to designate submerged lands and waters surrounding the Pacific Remote Islands to the full extent of the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) as a new national marine sanctuary at the public scoping meeting on Wednesday, May 224, 2023 at the Tauese PF Sunia Ocean Center.

A member of the alia association, Ioane said there were more than 50 alia boats back in the 80s but that number had dropped drastically when purse seiners started fishing in American Samoa fishing grounds. He said the methods used by these vessels harm not only the small fish but also big fishes and other marine life.

Read the full article at Samoa News

Scientists detected 5,000 sea creatures nobody knew existed. It’s a warning.

May 26, 2023 — There are bright, gummy creatures that look like partially peeled bananas. Glassy, translucent sponges that cling to the seabed like chandeliers flipped upside down. Phantasmic octopuses named, appropriately, after Casper the Friendly Ghost.

And that’s just what’s been discovered so far in the ocean’s biggest hot spot for future deep-sea mining.

To manufacture electric vehicles, batteries and other key pieces of a low-carbon economy, we need a lot of metal. Countries and companies are increasingly looking to mine that copper, cobalt and other critical minerals from the seafloor.

A new analysis of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, a vast mineral-rich area in the Pacific Ocean, estimates there are some 5,000 sea animals completely new to science there. The research published Thursday in the journal Current Biology is the latest sign that underwater extraction may come at a cost to a diverse array of life we are only beginning to understand.

Read the full article at Washington Post

WesPac calls on NOAA to fully engage over proposed sanctuary designation

May 25, 2023 — The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council (Council) has called on the U.S National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to ensure that the “Governors of the U.S Pacific Territories are consulted with” as the National Marine Sanctuary designation process begins for the Pacific Remote Island Areas.

The call is outlined in the Council’s letter last month signed by Council chairman, John Gourley and Executive Director, Kitty M. Simonds to NOAA Administrator, Richard W. Spinrad, who was informed that the Council at its 194th Meeting in March this year, discussed this particular issue.

In the letter, the Council requests that NOAA, and all other involved agencies, consult with the U.S. Pacific Territories beyond the public comment opportunity on this proposed sanctuary.

The Council also requests that the National Ocean Service (NOS) provide a presentation to the Council on the proposed sanctuary, so that the Council may ascertain its responsibilities and role in the process, as outlined by the federal National Marine Sanctuaries Act.

Read the full article at Samoa News

OP ED: EXPANDING EXISTING PRI MONUMENT WILL NEGATIVELY IMPACT THE AMERICAN SAMOA ECONOMY

May 24, 2023 — I’m taking this opportunity to reply to the Op-Ed written by William Aila, Jr. and Rick Gaffney and published by Samoa News on Wednesday, May 17, 2023.  Aila and Gaffney represent the Pacific Remote Islands Coalition (PRI), proponents of the proposed Pacific Remote Islands National Marine Sanctuary.

The Hawaiian environmental advocates have erroneously stated that expanding the existing PRI monument boundaries throughout the EEZ and excluding commercial tuna fishing by the American Samoa based U.S. flag purse seiners will not negatively impact the economic viability of StarKist’s large-scale tuna cannery in American Samoa. They claim that opposition to past environmentally-based fishing area closures would lead to cannery closures, and nothing happened. They are dangerously wrong!

American Samoa previously had two active canneries. One of those, Samoa Tuna Processors, closed at the end of 2016, not long after the loss of much of the traditional fishing grounds of the American Samoa based U.S. flag tuna purse seiners.

Three things happened that reduced those traditional fishing grounds: Kiribati[1] reduced the number of fishing days available to US purse seiners to 300 days, President Obama expanded the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument which closed the U.S. EEZ around Jarvis Island, a rich traditional fishing ground for the U.S. fleet; and, the U.S. Government voluntarily gave up 760 high seas fishing days in the Western and Central Pacific[2].

This perfect storm on unrelated events took away almost half of the American Samoa U.S. flag purse seiner fishing grounds. As a consequence, two things happened. The U.S. purse seiner fleet based in American Samoa was reduced from 40 to 12 boats and Samoa Tuna Processors closed its doors.

Read the full article at Samoa News

The True Cost of Tuna: Marine Observers Dying at Sea

May 23, 2023 — Simi Cagilaba could hear the fighting outside his cabin door. In the hallway of the 209-foot tuna seiner, drunken crewmen were roiling the ship yet again. It was late, and the vessel was bobbing on the currents of the South Pacific, the fighting typical of nights when the cook let the crew drink the rice wine. Now, the unwelcome clamor moved toward his door like another bad omen in a trip that was steadily devolving.

An official observer of marine fisheries, Cagilaba was miles offshore of the Marshall Islands, dispatched aboard the seiner then known as the Sea Quest. It was 2015. He had a background in marine affairs and was working for the Fijian government in its national Ministry of Fisheries, tasked with upholding a patchwork of regulations meant to safeguard tuna.

Read the full article at Civil Eats

Locals testify against expanding marine monument

May 22, 2023 — THE local opposition to a proposed expansion of a marine national monument in the Pacific Remote Islands was clear Friday, as most public commentators expressed their frustrations and aired their concerns to representatives of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

NOAA was on island to collect public comments regarding a proposal to expand the boundaries of marine protections at Howland and Baker Islands, and Kingman Reef and Palmyra Atoll, as well as encompass the areas under one marine national monument.

Most speakers against the expansion of the national marine monument shared one or more of the following basic arguments: the NOAA process to establish the sanctuary was too unilateral, in that it came from the federal government with not enough input from the Pacific; Pacific peoples were already conserving marine resources prior to NOAA’s establishment; and American Samoa’s fish canning industry will be damaged if the PRI national monument is expanded.

Read the full article at Marianas Variety 

A marine sanctuary proposal raises concern from residents

May 19, 2023 — A proposal to turn large swaths of ocean into a protected marine sanctuary was met with pushback from residents concerned about the federal government taking more control over the waters of the Western Pacific.

Officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office of National Marine Sanctuaries were at the Guam Museum in Hagåtña on Wednesday night to field questions and hear comments about the proposal. It would turn the reefs and waters around the area designated as “Pacific Remote Islands” into a sanctuary.

The Pacific Remote Islands comprise Baker, Howland and Jarvis Islands; Johnston, Wake and Palmyra Atolls; and Kingman Reef. NOAA officials said the area is home to some of the most diverse tropical marine life on the planet, including threatened and depleted species such as hawksbill sea turtles, giant clams and melon-headed whales.

Read the full article at the Guam Daily Post

Amata and Expert Witnesses Highlight Fishing Fleet Role in Countering PRC in Pacific Islands

May 18, 2023 — The following was released by Amata Coleman Radewagen:

Congresswoman Uifa’atali Amata and expert witnesses together strongly emphasized the importance of the U.S. Pacific fishing fleet and American-produced tuna in a Tuesday hearing on countering the PRC in the Pacific Islands, as well as highlighting how stationing Coast Guard vessels at Pago Pago Harbor would be an important signal of U.S. commitment in the Pacific.

Video of the hearing is available in its entirety HERE. American Samoa’s strategic role was highlighted in expert testimony provided by Dr. Peter Watson, President and CEO, The Dwight Group; Cleo Paskal, Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies; Alexander Gray, Managing Partner, American Global Strategies; Derek Grossman, Senior Defense Analyst, The RAND Corporation; and Emil Friberg, former Assistant Director and Senior Economist, International Affairs and Trade, Government Accounting Office. Congresswoman Amata’s statement and question begins at the 51:25 mark, leading into Dr. Watson’s response ending at 56:28.

‘Lively discussion’ expected at marine sanctuary public meetings

May 18, 2023 — AS the public comment deadline for a proposed designation of a marine sanctuary in the central Pacific draws near, the Pacific Remote Islands Coalition expects a “lively discussion of comments” at upcoming public meetings.

The PRI Coalition is a Hawaii-based organization formed in 2014. According to their website, they support the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s proposal to designate the Pacific Remote Islands as a new marine sanctuary.

The PRI Coalition, however, is not the officiating governing body that designates new marine sanctuaries. They are merely advocates for such actions over the Pacific Remote Islands, which include Wake Atoll, Johnston Atoll, Jarvis Island, Howland and Baker Islands, and Kingman Reef and Palmyra Atoll. These islands are around 2,000 nautical miles east of the CNMI.

Read the full article at Marianas Variety