Saving Seafood

Kiribati moves to open Phoenix Islands Protected Area to fishing, citing lost revenue

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

 

One of world’s largest protected areas now being opened to commercial fishing

November 17, 2021 — One of the world’s largest protected marine areas will open again to commercial fishing, the Kiribati government said Monday.

The Phoenix Islands Protected Area (PIPA), located in the south Pacific, was designated as a “no-take” zone in 2015, which prohibited commercial fishing in the area encompassing more than 157,000 square miles, The Guardian reported.

“Similar to any Government, our decisions, as we make them, put the livelihoods of our people at the fore and have been carefully considered and agreed to as a Government,” a government press statement read, referring to the economic benefits the nation could receive by lifting the commercial fishing ban, according to The Guardian.

Read the full story at The Hill