$50m boost for Pacific fisheries

New Zealand has pledged $50 million over the next three years to support Pacific fisheries surveillance and management, and Prime Minister Henry Puna intends to seek further assistance for fisheries issues from US secretary of state Hillary Clinton today.

Prime Minister John Key said yesterday the investment supports the sharing of New Zealand’s intellectual property and expertise in terms of conservation and monitoring of fishing. In particular it will target regional management of longline tuna resources, facilitate high quality investments in Pacific fisheries sectors, strengthen the science that underpins management decisions and implement best practice to manage fish stocks.

Key told reporters yesterday that fisheries issues were “by far the most debated” of those covered at this week’s Forum.

Prime Minister Henry Puna welcomes the investment, and says it will help his government – which he claims has yet to see quantifiable data concerning “just how much fish has been taken away” – to make more informed fisheries policy decisions.

“It is a concern that we have discussed at length today and the suggestion was made that it’s one issue that can be raised with Hillary Clinton tomorrow.”

Puna said that unless government has “substantive information and know(s) how much fish is being taken”, it cannot issue any directives or enact any legislative change to end overfishing.

Pressed by reporters to elaborate, he said: “Again, the answer is we don’t have enough information”.

A Forum communiqu, which was released yesterday, addresses the issue of overfishing, and the need for “science-based management action”.

Leaders agreed this week to adhere to management measures set out by the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, and called on distant water fishing nations active in Pacific waters to “fully recognise and support the sovereign rights, national laws, and development aspirations of small island developing states and ensure that commission measures do not result in the transfer of a disproportionate burden of conservation responsibilities on such states”.

Leaders at the Forum expressed concern over “ongoing illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing in the special management area of the eastern high seas pocket and the exclusive economic zones of the Cook Islands, French Polynesia and Kiribati”.

They noted the destructive impact of illegal fishing in the high seas and within the Cook Islands’ waters, and endorsed the “need to continually enhance the effectiveness of monitoring, controls, surveillance and enforcement capabilities in the region”.

They also considered the prospect of restricting any fishing in the eastern high seas pocket, or the unmanaged area between the Cook Islands, French Polynesia and Kiribati.

“Closing off the eastern high seas pocket to any form of fishing activity by the distant water fishing nations in the foreseeable future would be a significant step in that direction,” the Forum communiqu reads.

- Rachel Reeves

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