June 9, 2025 — Adrian Wickham is worried. He sits quietly in the back of a cavernous conference hall, fiddling with his fedora as he listens to Pacific island nation leaders, renowned marine scientists and international fishery managers talk tuna.
Wickham knows tuna. That’s been his business for decades as the manager of SolTuna, the Solomon Islands’ only cannery. And it’s been his country’s lifeblood for generations, providing food, jobs and a reliable revenue stream for government services.
He didn’t need to fly 200 miles from Noro, where SolTuna is based, to a United Nations gathering to know that things are changing. The tuna are moving out.
Fishermen have been working harder to catch fewer fish in recent years, and it’s getting worse. By adding bigger and better boats to the primary fleet that supplies the cannery, SolTuna has continued to grow. Without a new plan, those days seem numbered.
Warming waters are driving the tuna east where their prey — squid, shrimp, sardines, whatever they can find — has become more abundant in cooler waters farther out at sea. That’s why 300 delegates from 28 countries, including Wickham, have come together. It’s an economic crisis, fueled by climate change, and perhaps the most perplexing problem they’ll confront at the Honiara Summit.