Protect ocean

THE Pacific has a joint responsibility to safeguard the ocean and its resources against concerning issues such as climate change impact, human rights violations at sea, and illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing activities.

This was the message delivered by Ministry of Environment and Climate Change permanent secretary Dr Sivendra Michael while officiating at the opening of Conservation International’s phase two launch of its Jurisdictional Initiative Project in the Pacific.

The launch is part of a four-day meeting in Suva, and the second phase focuses on the implementation and scaling of jurisdictional initiatives for Pacific tuna.

Dr Michael said PICs had the largest exclusive economic zones and were at the forefront of international, regional, and national forums to raise and advocate approaches that would address these issues.

“Pacific Island Countries are resource owners of the world’s largest and most valuable tuna fisheries,” he said.

“On a socio-economic front, the industry provides jobs for over 20,000 people, as reported in the Global Tuna Valuation report by Pew Charitable trusts.

“But without doubt, know that our tuna populations are being overfished, and management decisions are too often based on shortterm financial objectives.

“Tuna fisheries can result in incidentally caught bycatch species including seabirds, sea turtles, marine mammals, sharks, and rays.”

With tuna being one o the most heavily traded food communities around the world, Dr Michael stressed it would not be easy to tackle these challenges.

He also said that long and complex supply chains made it difficult for product information to be recorded accurately and consistently and shared throughout each step in the chain.

Thus, he said the Jurisdictional Approach to Tuna Project was an initiative applied in commodity producing regions to enable sustainability driven through applied incentives among key stakeholders like producers, government, civil societies, and supply chain companies.

According to Conservation International Pacific region vice president Susana WaqainabeteTuisese, the organisation was trying to scale up this program across the wider Pacific region.

She said they were trying to help the industry protect the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and improve efficiency in the fishing sector by looking at the impact of climate change and means to help communities respond positively to climate change.

Ms Waqainabete stressed that without healthy ecosystems, communities would continue to suffer.

But without doubt, know that our tuna populations are being overfished, and management decisions are too often based on short-term financial objectives

– Dr Sivendra Michael