Management of tuna catch a hot potato
High stakes talks are under way in Auckland this week over who can catch the fish going into our cans of tuna – state-subsidised Pacific pillagers or long-term stewards.
The immediate negotiations involve the South Pacific Tuna Treaty, a multinational agreement covering access to the world’s biggest tuna resource by the United States fishing fleet, but there is a bigger picture too.
About a third of the world’s tuna is caught in the tropics of the western Pacific in areas controlled by Pacific Island states, such as Micronesia, Kiribati, the Solomons and Tuvalu.
But with those countries now effectively auctioning access to their tuna to the highest bidder, concern is mounting about the damaging effect of subsidies by nations such as China.
US executive Joe Hamby of big tuna company Tri Marine, in Auckland to support US trade negotiators, said a side-effect of the ‘‘vessel-days’’ auction scheme was an excessive catch of tuna.
‘‘Right now we are suffering from an oversupplied market which is the result of over capacity,’’ he said.
‘‘Why? Because there is an attitude of expansionism by the resource owners. More boats means more demand for fishing days – and they are not discriminating. How much money do you have to buy a day? The more the better. We think that is a rather short-sighted policy. We think more attention and value should be given to creating an economically, environmentally and socially sustainable industry that goes through the islands.’’
The problem has become deeply political.
The Tuna Treaty, in operation since 1988, has been running on temporary extensions since 2013 and will expire in December unless a new agreement can be reached.
The original deal gave the US unlimited access to the fishery for a fixed number of boats, in exchange for a fixed amount of money. In recent years the exchange was 40 boats for US$21 million (NZ$28m).
But a group of eight Pacific nations, known as Parties to the Nauru Agreement, began changing the game in 2010 by offering a fixed number of days access to their skipjack tuna fishery to all comers, for a price.
The total fishing days available from them this year is 44,623 – equivalent to 446 vessels fishing for 100 days each, for example.
Andy Smith, deepwater fleet manager for fishing company Talleys which operates two purse seine Pacific skipjack tuna vessels, said the price for vessel days in the area was becoming prohibitive.
‘‘It’s huge,’’ he said. ‘‘We’re paying up to $10,000 a day, whether we catch fish or not.’’
That price was being driven by subsidised demand from Asian fleets, said Smith.
The soaring vessel-day price makes the island nations reluctant to extend the Tuna Treaty on the old terms, pressuring the US into agreeing a much higher price.
‘‘If PNA countries do not support the treaty with vessel-days the US will not be able to fish, even if all the other signatories agree on all the points,’’ said Hamby.
‘‘They have effective control of the tuna resource. With that effective control which they’re monetising through the vessel-day scheme, they are making a lot of money, but that implies a responsibility to manage the fishery and to limit the capacity.’’
James Movick, director general of the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency, said the vesseldays scheme was a practical way to control the resource.
The PNA had seen the higher returns achieved through vesseldays and ‘‘we have clear instructions from our leaders that the commercial aspects of the treaty must reflect our competitive alternatives,’’ he said.
Hamby, highlighting Tri Marine’s investment in the region through processing plants in American Samoa and the Solomons, said focusing on the price of vessel-days was shortsighted.
‘‘I hope there’s some recognition that this fishery is a shared resource, not only with the resource owners but also to the historical participants,’’ he said.
‘‘The US fleet actually pioneered this fishery.
‘‘We’d like the islanders to recognise we aren’t just a distant water fishing nation like China or Korea or Taiwan or Japan. We are a local player and they should support therefore the continued participation of the United States in this fishery.