No doubt about it: bigeye tuna are in trouble in the central and western Pacific Ocean. Targeted by longliners when they are adult, trapped in purse seine nets when they are young, bigeye are in a steep decline, with fisheries scientists agreeing that their numbers are heading into the dreaded “red” zone of management charts – where the amount of fish caught annually exceeds the species’ ability to rebound.
The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) is the international organization charged with regulating fishing for bigeye and other highly migratory fish species throughout the region. But its six-day meeting in Honolulu last month concluded without any significant action to stave off further harm to bigeye populations.
Several measures were proposed, any one of which would have probably had a positive impact on the conservation of bigeye:
•Japan wanted to put a moratorium on any increase in fishing capacity, on the theory that a ban on new purse seiners would cap effort at current levels. That failed.
•A coalition of eight island states representing the bulk of the territorial seas fished by the purse seiners proposed hat the commission ban purse seining on some 4.5 million square miles of equatorial open ocean in the eastern part of the commission’s jurisdiction. Again, that failed to win the commission’s support.
•The European Union wanted to impose a three-month ban on fishing by purse seiners and the larger longline fleets. Once more, the measure failed.
Many of the arguments against further conservation measures relied on claims that the commission’s efforts in 2008 to address overfishing of bigeye and, to a lesser degree, yellowfin tuna in a comprehensive conservation and management measure (CMM 2008-01) had not run their course. To achieve the 30 percent reduction in the catch of bigeye that scientists said was the minimum needed to restore stocks to health, CMM 2008-01 called generally for limiting purse seine effort through a variety of measures (including restricted fishing days, restricted fishing on fish aggregating devices, or FADs, and closure of western high seas pockets, among them) and cuts of 10 percent a year for three years in the longline catch of bigeye from a baseline calculated from catch levels in the first half of the decade.
As sound as the arguments against further conservation efforts may have been, there was no arguing with the conclusions of the commission’s scientific committee: “Even if fully implemented and complied with,” it found, “CMM-2008-01 is extremely unlikely to achieve its most important objective: reducing fishing mortality on the [Western and Central Pacific Ocean] bigeye tuna stock” by 30 percent from the baseline levels.
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The Political Economy of Tuna
In 2009, the region under the WCPFC’s jurisdiction was the source of 2.5 million metric tons of tuna into the world market, accounting for 58 percent of the global tuna catch. More than three quarters of this was caught by purse seiners, and most of the catch consisted of skipjack tuna. Longliners (including those in Hawai`i) accounted for 9 percent of the total.
While the purse seiners target skipjack, they also catch yellowfin tuna and juvenile bigeye, which tend to join skipjack schools that collect around large floating objects. These can be natural (logs, large whale sharks, cetaceans) or manmade (fish aggregating devices, buoys, or navigational guides).
Therein lies the heart of the bigeye problem. The growing haul of tuna by purse seiners includes large numbers of juvenile bigeye. While bigeye account for around 5 percent (about 120,000 metric tons) of the total volume of tuna caught in the WCPFC area, this represents a huge increase over the proportion of bigeye taken thirty years ago, when the catch of bigeye was virtually nil. In recent years, with the increasing use of FADs, the purse seiners have taken almost as much bigeye (by weight) as the longliners, with practically all of that being juvenile fish. Even though total bigeye catch in 2009 actually fell to the lowest level since 2003 (attributed to a drop in longline catch), the fishing effort still exceeds the maximum sustainable yield (MSY) of the bigeye by more than 60 percent.
Much of the growth in purse seining activity has been fueled by industrialized nations, represented in the WCPFC by Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, with China, the United States, and the European Union participating to a lesser extent. To create a groundwork for a more equitable distribution of economic benefit from the exploited fish stocks, the founding documents of the WCPFC give deference to the economic needs of the so-called small island developing states (SIDS). In CMM 2008-01, for example, the same limits on fishing activity imposed on the developed nations’ fleets do not apply to the SIDS, leaving them free to order large new purse seiners, often with financial help from foreign fishing interests.
To maximize their income, the South Pacific island states sell access to their Exclusive Economic Zones, or EEZs. Purse seiners fishing under these arrangements usually receive an allotment of so-called vessel days (days in which a vessel can fish inside the EEZ of the island state). The South Pacific states thus have an economic interest in pushing effort into their EEZs and out of the high seas. (The United States, which separately has a treaty arrangement with South Pacific states, is not bound by the vessel-day scheme. According to a report by the eight island states that are Parties to the Nauru Agreement, however, U.S. purse seiners fished about 7,500 vessel days in the PNA area in 2009.) Last year, amid concerns that the vessel-day scheme was allowing too many unused days to carry over from one year to the next, the PNA set a hard cap on vessel days of 28,469 per year and bans further carry-over.
The vessel-day scheme, however, does little to reduce the take of bigeye tuna by purse seiners. To accomplish that, the commission has embraced an approach that bans setting on FADs for two months. Purse seiners can continue fishing, but they must avoid setting on FADs, which in theory means that fewer juvenile bigeye will be caught in their nets. In practice, this has been difficult to enforce.
By the time the commission meeting closed, members were still unable to agree on any measure to bring about reductions in bigeye take. All they were able to accept was a plan on how to proceed with revisions to CMM 2008-01 over the next year while urging members to adopt voluntary measures to mitigate “the impact of their fishing activities on the sustainability of bigeye, skipjack, and yellowfin tuna.”
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The Japanese Gambit
Perhaps the most far-reaching proposal to address the crisis in bigeye was that of the Japanese, calling for a cap on the capacity of purse seiners operating in the area under WCPFC jurisdiction. In a formal proposal submitted in November to the commission, Japan called for member nations to “ensure that the level of purse seine fishing capacity in the number of their flagged vessel fishing on the high seas does not increase from the current level, and to ensure that the level of purse seine fishing effort in days fished on the high seas does not increase” beyond either the level that existed in 2004 or the average level from years 2001-2004.
The proposal also called on the island states whose EEZs make up the bulk of the seas fished by the purse seiners – the so-called coastal states – to make sure that the number of purse seiners within their EEZs would remain at current levels.
At the outset of the meeting, however, Masanori Miyahara, head of the Japanese delegation, simplified his country’s proposal to where it was a one sentence, imposing a cap on purse seine vessels in the region. Miyahara noted that purse seine effort had expanded 30 to 40 percent over the last three years, and that if nothing were done in the coming yea
r, the situation of tuna stocks would be far more difficult to deal with at the next WCPFC meeting.
China’s head of delegation, Liu Xiaobing, said that while China respects the “development aspirations of small island countries,… if there’s no controlled growth of purse seiners, it creates huge problems. “ He noted that his government has recently been receiving reports from its industry of governments in the PNA placing orders for new purse seine vessels. “So we feel puzzled,” he said. “According to the WCPFC rules, we cannot block such applications.” On the other hand, if the vessels – “$20 million each,” he noted – start fishing in this area, “there will be a huge amount of catch…. So we strongly urge this organization to form guidelines for this development.”
Roberto Cesari, head of the European Union delegation, supported the freeze, as did the United States and France.
Tim Adams, head of the delegation from Nauru, objected. “Nauru is not in favor of capacity limits if this is just a return to the past,” he said. Controlling effort, on the other hand – as the Parties to the Nauru Agreement attempt to do through the vessel-day scheme – allows coastal states “more control over who fishes in our waters, he noted. “We’re not against capacity management as such, but just against turning back the clock.” If any scheme to limit capacity is adopted, he said, “it should not limit the right of coastal states to choose which vessels are in our waters.”
Cesari replied by intimating that if limits weren’t put into place, the European Union could sanction tuna products from the region. “We have some doubts, as the European Union, on some of the effectiveness of elements now in force. We are worried that, as a market state, we don’t think that we are fulfilling our responsibilities in terms of conservation… We have the responsibility to look at what kind of products are getting to our market.” Referring to European limits on swordfish fishing, Cesari noted that what was done there was to cap the number of vessels, “and that species is not in as much danger as tropical tunas. I don’t understand why we should not take the same action on more endangered stocks.”
Adams agreed that the problem of capacity needed to be addressed, and that Nauru was committed “to halting or even reversing the expansion of purse seiners in this region. We just don’t feel it should be frozen in its current balance, in a form where most vessels are in foreign hands.”
Chair Satya Nandan weighed in on the topic as well: “I’ve been for some time hearing that there were at least 40 more purse seiners being built. They were all going to be larger than ones we have at the moment… This is a very serious thing. It does address, affect the credibility of this organization. We take decisions, but don’t implement them. Everyone goes back and it’s business as usual in terms of catches. Let’s admit it. We have failed in the first step we took toward the reduction of catch. Miserably failed. It was touted very widely that we have taken this very important step, cut 30 percent over three years, and I regret to say that we’ve failed…. We have too many boats chasing too few fish.”
Addressing concerns of the SIDS, he added that any measure to cap capacity has to include a provision that allows capacity to be transferred to the developing countries. “At the moment, the distant water fishing nations are taking the fish, and there’s very limited capacity for the developing countries, but there has to be a serious effort made to transfer capacity.” He urged delegates to work out a compromise and bring it back for consideration the following day.
Glen Joseph, head of the Marshall Islands delegation, said that this might be a problem. “We may find ourselves in a bit of a compromised situation here,” he said, “especially when we have two vessels in Chinese Taipei to be built and two more in China… So if I agree with you, I would probably find myself locked out” of home on his return to Majuro.
China’s Liu Xiaobing affirmed the Marshalls’ order for two vessels, but added: “We need transparency. We need for all PNA countries [to] let us know what your plan is… We are very worried about … maybe more than 100 purse seiners will be constructed.” As concerned as his government was about the protection of highly migratory species, he said, he was “also talking about the security of the investment. We should insure that Chinese investment is secure, so new purse seine vessels built by us will be accepted.”
Close the Bus!
The next day, which was also the last, Japan again tried to push for adoption of its proposed freeze on purse seine vessels. “As I mentioned again and again,” Miyahara said, “we have to take this measure. Otherwise the situation will be much worse, uncontrollable next year…. If we don’t take any action this year, it will be the shame of this commission. Last year, we didn’t take any measure, any effective measure to control fishing effort by purse seiners. And effort increased 40 percent and is still growing at a rapid pace. Stocks are getting worse and worse.”
Papua New Guinea threw the matter back into the laps of the industrialized countries. “Capacity is a contentious issue. The distant water fishing nations must also tell this commission how they’re going to reduce their existing capacity,” the representative of the delegation stated. Japan’s proposal, he said, “calls into doubt the commitment of FFA members to long-term conservation.” (The South Pacific Forum Fisheries Agency consists of nearly all South Pacific states within the WCPFC area of jurisdiction.) “FFA members face the fact every day that without sustainable fisheries, our economies cannot develop and our people cannot enjoy better standards of living… We are growing tired of having to continually defend rights that we have under international law and [Conservation and Management Measure] 2008-01. We are tired of having to defend ourselves against … others who have already depleted our resources and … infringed on our sovereignty.”
Japan wasn’t buying it. “I think we have to do something now,” Miyahara said. “We are not saying we should interfere with any coastal state… It is coastal states, definitely, who decide who should fish and how much… That’s something you can do… If you want to increase your fleet, then you have to exclude distant water fishing nations from your zone. That’s fine. But you have to show your strong will to control your fishery. This is a too-crowded bus. Passengers are coming and coming and coming, and nobody is getting off. It is you who decide who should get off… Please, we already have too many boats.”
The New Zealand head of delegation, Matthew Hooper, stated that FFA members had met to discuss the Japan proposal but, “after some careful consideration, FFA members were not able to find a basis for support.” However, he added, “I think FFA members really want to emphasize that… we are certainly interested in further limiting capacity to complement and support the vessel-day scheme.” To Miyahara, he indicated a willingness to meet later in the day to see what could be achieved before the meeting closed, but the Marshall Islands representative was firm. “This is the last day and we have other important issues,” said the Marshall Islands’ Joseph. “Although this is very important, we’re not prepared to deal with it any further.” The Solomon Islands and Kiribati delegations joined in the sentiment.
“We’re not making headway,” said Nandan. “The proposal is to postpone it until next session. That’s where we are.”
Miyahara expressed his thanks for the “candid statements” of the Pacific islanders. “If this is the case,” he added, “you have to accept the near future consequences from the northern zone. We cannot accept products coming from this region as sustainable produc
ts any more. So you have to take the consequences. It’s a very very hard thing to see this meeting show the incompetence of this organization…. That is very disappointing.”
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High Seas Closure Is Nixed
Last year, the eight island states forming the Parties to the Nauru Agreement agreed that, as a condition of receiving a license to fish in their exclusive economic zones, purse seine vessels would be required to avoid fishing in some 4.5 million square miles of equatorial open ocean in the eastern part of the area under WCPFC jurisdiction. It then proposed that the full commission extend the ban to vessels belonging to all parties to the WCPFC.
Because of the U.S. tuna treaty, however, the PNA measure does not apply to the 36 U.S.-flagged purse seiners fishing in the Western Pacific.
The European Union had no objection to the PNA requirement. “We don’t contest your right to take your measure,” Cesari said. But he went on to express some skepticism about the conservation value. “We have already seen there’s not a big value in a high seas pocket closure,” he said. Effort doesn’t disappear, he said, it simply shifts. The closure by WCPFC of two high seas pockets in the Western Pacific had not yet been shown to have any impact, he said.
Charles Karnella, head of the U.S. delegation, voiced a similar position. “We’re most interested to hear about … the scientific justification,” he said.
The PNA proposal did not gain much traction at the meeting, even though some conservation groups – most notably Greenpeace – advocated strongly for its adoption.
What the commission did agree to was a proposal to beef up controls over a much smaller 45,000-square-mile high seas pocket surrounded by the territorial waters of Cook Islands, French Polynesia, and Kiribati. The Cook Islands delegation stated that the area was a zone where illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing was occurring, with frequent incursions into territorial waters and transshipment of catches. “This suggests to us that catches are being misrepresented,” the head of the delegation stated. “Aside from the illegality of this issue, it undermines the science the commission is required to provide for sustainable management measures.”
Korea and Chinese Taipei were alone in their objections, but eventually an agreement was worked out. The member countries are to adopt regulations implementing the new controls by July 1 of this year.
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Little Support for Three-Month Moratorium
Roberto Cesari argued in favor of the European Union’s proposal to close off most WCPFC waters to all fishing by purse seiners and most by longliners for a full three months. CMM 2008-01, he noted, has not been “particularly effective. … What we have in place now doesn’t work. We saw that when you close an area, the effort shifts. You close another area, and the effort shifts again.”
The beauty of the EU proposal, he said, lies in the fact that it will have “certain and sure results, with transparency, and the possibility to monitor clearly what is happening.”
Once more, South Pacific island states objected. The Solomon Islands delegation noted that a total closure, instead of merely the existing two-month ban on FAD sets, “involves substantial losses to purse seine fleets,” including domestic vessels. This, he added, “undermines the sovereign rights of coastal states.” What’s more, he said, the FAD closure is more targeted to addressing bigeye overfishing than is an outright ban on fishing.
Nauru’s Tim Adams agreed, adding that the closure would also disrupt operations of canneries. However, Adams said, the PNA might be agreeable to a closure on the high seas coinciding with the two-month FAD ban. “If you think there is too much purse seine effort,” he told Cesari, “then tie up your boats.”
Cesari could not let that pass. “If someone thinks the E.U. has too many vessels on the grounds, … maybe there’s too many fish in our market coming from this area. It’s not exactly well managed in a sustainable way… It is in the interests of market states to get sustainable fish on our markets,” he said. He noted that the E.U. had been cooperating with many of the island nations in this and other areas, “quite successfully. But, obviously, there is an evaluation that has to be done in Brussels about how the areas are being managed for conservation.”
Japan was sympathetic, but could not go along with the E.U. option. “If we close for three months,” he said, “some fishing fleets can move from west to east to continue fishing activities and then catch the same stock.” Instead, he said, “Japan would like to see establishment of catch limits… for purse seiners. This is the only assured way of reducing the actual catch.”
Seeing no resolution, Nandan again put the proposal off to next year.
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Whale Sharks, Cetaceans Await Protection
Australia proposed a measure that would ban the deliberate encirclement of cetaceans by purse seiners. The Republic of the Marshall Islands, on behalf of South Pacific members of the Forum Fisheries Agency, proposed banning sets on whale sharks. Neither measure won approval.
Japan strongly objected to both measures. During the discussion of the cetacean proposal, Miyahara put forth his country’s position: “The cetacean is kind of a sensitive issue for Japanese government. We have lots of concerned people…. We don’t take whales in purse seine fishery. We will do every effort to release the whales alive, unhurt, and that is the purpose of the Japanese fishermen and rules of Japanese government. Please give us time.”
China objected as well, with the head of its delegation wanting to defer this to the International Whaling Commission. “Our position,” he said, “is [that] we don’t talk about any issue relating to cetaceans. Sorry, we cannot accept this proposal.”
Among the Asian nations, Korea alone spoke in support, joining the United States and all the South Pacific states.
But no vote was taken on the measure. Instead, Nandan noted that this was a situation “where there is some opposition to continuing with this item today.” He deferred it until the next commission meeting, in December 2011.
The proposal to ban purse seine sets on whale sharks was opposed by all six Asian nations: Japan, China, Chinese Taipei (as Taiwan is called in the WCPFC), Korea, Philippines, and Indonesia. Speaking on behalf of the bloc, Miyahara noted that they could support it only if the first four paragraphs of the measure were deleted, effectively gutting the measure.
South Pacific states expressed their strong support for the whale shark set ban, which had already been adopted in September by the Parties to the Nauru Agreement for purse seiners in their EEZs. The head of the delegation from the Republic of the Marshall Islands requested that a photograph of a whale shark hauled up with a purse seine net be shown on the large screens surrounding the meeting hall. That, however, failed to sway the Asian bloc.
Once again, the chairman punted: “I see no movement on this. Let’s leave it on the table. It can be picked up next session.”
Patricia Tummons
Volume 21, Number 7 — January 2011
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