This week in Denarau, Fiji, the 9th edition of the Pacific Tuna Forum was organised by my friends from INFOFISH, with the support of Fiji’s Ministry of Fisheries and PNG’s National Fisheries Authority.
As usual…. trying to convince people I know what I’m talking about
Almost 60% of the world's tuna is caught in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean (WCPO). This makes the Pacific and the "Blue Pacific Continent" the centre of the global tuna business.
The theme of the 9th Pacific Tuna Forum (PTF 2025) is "Pacific Tuna 2050: Resilience, Innovation, Equity and Sustainable Trade for a Prosperous Future." This emphasises not only a regional focus and priority on retaining more value, fostering industry growth, creating sustainable supply chains, expanding markets, and boosting trade to ensure the tuna industry’s longevity.
It also highlights generating substantial revenue to support national development priorities, creating jobs, transferring technology and knowledge, promoting more equitable wealth distribution, addressing the impacts of climate change across the region, and strengthening the resilience of the Blue Pacific Continent.
The long-term health and success of the tuna industry are essential not only for the region but also for its lasting global influence. It plays a crucial role in ensuring food security, reducing poverty, improving health and education, maintaining stable supply chains, markets, and trade, enhancing fisheries management, combating illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, and supporting the UN's Sustainable Development Goals for a safer, better, and more prosperous future in the Pacific region and beyond.
This is the 9th time I’ve been invited to be a presenter—something I don’t take lightly or for granted.
My presentation examined the implementation of the Port State Measures (PSM) in the region, particularly in the RMI, which has proven to be a vital tool in Monitoring, Control, and Surveillance (MCS) efforts to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
However, it remains a last resort measure, addressing the lack of flag state responsibility by Distant Water Fishing Nations (DWN) over their vessels.
DWFN carrier vessels on the high seas source fish from more longliners flagged to various states than many Pacific ports, often with no checks on the legality of the catches they receive. Meanwhile, effective PSM implementation remains a logistically complex and resource-intensive task for most Pacific Island fisheries administrations.
Additionally, I highlighted examples of longliners that travel considerably greater distances to reach the high seas rendezvous point with carriers than they would if heading to a port. This demonstrates, as with many other cases, the disproportionate burden of MCS placed on Pacific nations. At the same time, DWFN entities mostly evade similar oversight.
I hope that my presentation contributes to the growing calls for reform of high-seas transhipment within the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC).
Furthermore, this year I have been asked to moderate the final session, “Future-Proofing the Tuna Industry and Its Sustainable Development in the Blue Pacific Continent. This session looks ahead—exploring how we can strengthen resilience, increase participation, and ensure shared benefits across the Pacific tuna value chain in a fairer, more transparent, and more sustainable manner.
The presenters will examine key aspects of a sustainable future for tuna—including climate financing, ecolabelling certification, private certification of fishers’ labour standards, and social accountability in industry standards.
It's interesting and ironic too that they asked me to moderate a session that includes ecolabels and private labour certifications, two topics that have been highly criticised for years.
So yeah…. I’ll try to be a consummate professional about it.