November 19, 2021 — The Kiribati government has announced it will open to fishing the Phoenix Islands Protected Area (PIPA) – a 408,250-square-kilometer marine protected area – after a decline in revenue the island-nation’s government attributed to the creation of the area.

The Kiribati government said an independent advisory panel found that since the creation of PIPA in 2015, demand for its fishing permits has declined 8 percent, costing the country millions in revenue.

The government said the lost revenue has huge implications on future allocations of Kiribati’s vessel day scheme (VDS) share via its participation in the Parties to the Nauru Agreement. For purse-seine fishing, this decline translated to approximately USD 60 million to USD 140 million (EUR 53 million to EUR 123 million) in lost revenue since 2015. For longline fisheries, Kiribati lost out on approximately USD 850,000 (EUR 749,000) annually, or around USD 5.9 million (EUR 5.2 million) since 2015.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource