Pacific fisheries

This comes after reports that Vietnam has been receptive to complaints from Australia about the poachers while being dismissive of the complaints from Pacific countries.

Government officials of affected countries, (including Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau and the Marshall Islands), were hosted in Australia this week by the Forum Fisheries Agency and the Pacific Community to try and come up with a consolidated regional approach to the poaching.

The Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) and WWF are celebrating the rollout of observer electronic reporting tools - through the new Observer eReporting App - that will reduce Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing and bolster supply chain transparency and traceability in the Western and Central Pacific tuna fisheries.
 

The annual official meeting of the Parties to the Nauru Agreement begins in the Marshall Islands capital Majuro today.

The PNA controls the world's largest sustainable tuna purse-seine fishery.

Its meeting is expected to endorse recommendations for action by government ministers who will meet in Majuro in two months time.

Members will look at how to implement calls to ban high-sea bunkering of fishing vessels by requiring refuelling in ports or designated zones.

This also comes after the request for support from various development partners committed to energy and transport in the Pacific.

The three-day regional workshop, is hosted by the Government of Vanuatu in collaboration with the Pacific Community (SPC) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO).

“The Government of Vanuatu is particularly proud to host the regional meeting for Heads of Maritime and Energy in order to prepare the Third Energy and Transport Ministers Meeting in 2017”.

The payment was made to ensure the black listing of one of the country’s flagged fishing vessels at this week’s Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission(WCPFC) 13th regular meeting in Nadi, Fiji this week did not take place.
 
The Vanuatu Department of Fisheries’ Compliance Manager, William Matariki, who is leading Vanuatu’s two-member delegation at the Commission meeting, confirmed this development to the Daily Post.
 

With the leadership of the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) that is headquartered in Honiara, Solomon Islands, the fisheries officers have returned to their respective offices to spearhead the efficient capturing and analyzing of data on tuna catches and tuna fleet that are fishing in Pacific waters.

“The five day RIMF training has been very productive and participants now return to work armed with the new knowledge on how they can capture data better,” says Kenneth Katafono, FFA’s Manager IT and lead trainer of the RIMF workshop.

When addressing the plenary session of the 47^th Pacific Islands Forum leaders meeting in Pohnpei Friday (9^th September 2016) the Vanuatu Minister for Fisheries who is also Chairman of the Forum Fisheries Committee of Ministers Matai Seremaiah Nawalu made the point that as part of the recommendations from the Specialist Sub-Committee on Regionalism, the leaders had a further specific proposal to drive cooperation in respect of coastal fisheries. 

 This was the focus of IFC’s new research, which was presented at the Harbor Project Development Conference, hosted by the Solomon Islands Government.

IFC Senior Operations Officer, Dina Nicholas, said, “What we are seeing in the Pacific generally is that the fisheries industry only employs about 1 percent of its workforce locally. Only 10 percent of the catch is processed locally.”

Yolanda Jiang, PT&I China’s Manager, Trade, Operations and Special Projects based in Beijing, attended the 11thFuzhou International Fisheries Expo, the second largest professional fisheries fair in China.