PNA

A third party independent auditor, Acoura Marine, has been contracted by the PNA to undertake the reassessment.

Pacifical c.v., the global tuna marketing company jointly set up by eight PNA countries in 2011 to promote its MSC certified sustainably caught tuna, said that the process should go smoothly and that deliveries of Pacifical MSC tuna will continue uninterrupted through 2017.

Despite criticism by countries outside of this western and central Pacific fishery of a management system used to regulate the tuna industry, fisheries officials from the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) agreed at their annual meeting in Kiribati last week to recommend to their fisheries ministers that the system be maintained.

This decision followed review at the annual meeting of an independent study of the PNA’s Vessel Day Scheme (VDS), which manages a multi-tuna fishery by controlling fishing effort.

Under the Parties to the Nauru Agreement's Vessel Day Scheme, the US fleet was given 5,700 fishing days, but now it's asking the PNA to reduce that to just 2,000 days.

The pay-by-day scheme has quadrupled PNA nations' incomes, but has allowed catch rates to hit new highs, which has seen the market price for tuna drop to half of what it was in 2013.

An official with the US State Department, Michael Drake, says the situation isn't ideal for either side, but the falling price has made current fishing arrangements unaffordable.