Saving Seafood

Blue Boat Captains Held In Solomons Claims They Are Trafficking Victims

July 6, 2017 — The three captains of the blue boats who entered our waters and stole our marine resources say they are victims of human trafficking.

This was revealed yesterday by their lawyer Public Solicitor Douglas Hou in the High Court during the mitigation and sentencing submissions of their case.

Mr Hou also told the court upon the instructions of Do Van Va, Vo Van Vi, and Nguyen Nguyen that they are not captains of the three blue boats but were merely operating the vessel at that time when they were caught.

“The whole team could actually navigate the vessel,” Mr Hou said in mitigation.

“These three accused are the unfortunate ones tasked to operate the vessel when they were caught.”

He submitted that the period served in custody should not be long as it would be unfair on the three accused now victims as other crew members of the blue boats had already went home.

He said all 40 crew members who have already returned to Vietnam and these three accused have equal roles in operating the boats and it would be unfair for the three accused if they served long period in prison.

Mr Hou said the three accused are victims of human trafficking used by the owners of the blue boats.

Read the full story at the Pacific Islands Report

EU removes IUU yellow cards for two countries

January 24, 2017 — The European Commission (EC) has lifted the so-called illegal fishing “yellow cards” that had been placed on Curacao and the Solomon Islands, recognizing the significant progress both countries have made in combating illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

“This is a good day for Curacao and Solomon Islands, and good news for sustainable fisheries around the globe. Countries worldwide have a shared duty to fight illegal fishing, protect law-abiding fishermen, and keep our oceans healthy. I encourage others to join the European Union in this fight and contribute to better ocean governance,” said European Union Commissioner for Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Karmenu Vella.

Under the IUU Regulation, the E.C. warned Curacao in November 2013 and the Solomon Islands in December 2014 that they were not doing enough against IUU fishing. Since then, both countries have embarked on a series of reforms to bring their fisheries legal and administrative frameworks in line with international law, and are now equipped to tackle illegal fishing effectively.

Working closely with the E.C., they have strengthened their sanctioning system, and have improved monitoring and control of their fleets.

The IUU Regulation is the E.U.’s main tool in the fight against illegal fishing. It encourages countries to work with the E.C. to improve their fisheries governance and retain access to E.U. markets.

The E.C. estimates that the global value of IUU fishing is approximately EUR 10 billion (USD 10.6 billion) per year, equating to as much as 15 percent of catches worldwide.

Curacao and the Solomon Islands join a growing list of countries that have reformed their fisheries governance systems following a warning by the E.U., including Sri Lanka, Ghana, and the Philippines.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

PNA Tuna Fishing Nations Agree to Keep Vessel Day Managment Scheme

April 12, 2016 — SEAFOOD NEWS — A Pacific fisheries bloc has unanimously decided to maintain a management system that it says has increased revenue to the islands by more than 500 percent in the past six years.

The Parties to the Nauru Agreement’s Vessel Day Scheme allocates its member countries a number of days per vessel that they can allocate to distant water nations which want to purse seine fish for tuna in their waters.

It is seen as a means of increasing returns and ensuring greater sustainabiliity.

Non-island nations are advocating different approaches, including New Zealand, which this week is promoting its catch based management system to Pacific fisheries ministers.

But the PNA members agreed last week to stay with their VDS system after a review by a New Zealand based company called Toroa Strategy Ltd.

It concluded the VDS is a fully functioning fisheries management regime without peer for its class of fishery.

It said there was no clear benefit from changing to a catch scheme now or in the near future.

The New Zealand meetings are part of the Pacific Island’s Roadmap for Sustainable Pacific Fisheries but the strategy company says Pacific leaders have acted precipitately.

It said they were putting the cart before the horse by opting immediately for a catch-based system.

PNA controls waters where 50 percent of the global supply of skipjack tuna is caught.

Its members are Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, the Federated States of Micronesia and Palau.

Tokelau is not a full member, but has joined PNA in enforcing the VDS in its fishery.

After detailing the pros and cons of both effort and quota limit systems, the independent review said there was no evidence the present sustainability performance of the VDS was inferior to the quota management system, given the nature and current state of the tuna fishery.

It said the current total catch level in PNA waters was sustainable and the management system in place works.

The company said the purse seine VDS was a very successful fisheries management regime by any real world standard.

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

Pacific media commits to stronger reporting of tuna stories

(March 24, 2016) –Journalists from American Samoa, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu have met this week as part of the 4th Pacific Media Summit hosted by the government, media partners and people of Palau.

Their two-day Fisheries Forum Agency (FFA) tunanomics Pacific media initiative regional editors dialogue on ‘Reporting the Future of Fisheries – challenges to 2020’ comes two years after the launch in February 2014 of the FFA tunanomics Pacific media initiative at the 3rd Pacific Media Summit in Noumea, New Caledonia.

The journalists expressed success stories and challenges in covering tuna stories and came up with recommendations that would make fisheries stories more attractive to readers.

One of the recommendations is “to develop and grow their understanding of tunanomics and what the economics of tuna mean to policy and decision makers, not just to news makers”.

In Palau, although offshore fishing contributes less than five percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Palau is taking a different approach by conservation and beefing up its marine surveillance capacities through its new national marine sanctuary.

Read the full story at Loop

Tuna treaty restored

March 22, 2016 — After a heated debate over high fishing fees and an announcement that the U.S. would pull out of the South Pacific Tuna Treaty, negotiations have restored the treaty and U.S. fishing vessels are back at sea.

Due to a bad 2015 season, the 37-boat American tuna fleet said they couldn’t afford the fees for the fishing days they had agreed to buy in August. They sought to lower the number of fishing days for the fleet and reduce their bill, but the Solomon Islands-based Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency, the administrators of the treaty were holding the fleet to their initial agreement.

The U.S. Department announced in mid-January that it intends to pull out of the 27-year-old treaty, effective immediately, and U.S. boats were headed back to port along the California coast.

Now the department has announced that they’ve negotiated, lowering the number of collective fishing days from 5,959 to around 3,900 and the fleet’s tuna tab from $90 million to $66 million. The unused days will be resold to other nations, according to the treaty agency, but those deals will not be as profitable as the original deal with the U.S.

Read the full story at National Fisherman