Inroads on Fisheries Subsidies at the latest WTO meeting

Policymakers in the 10th WTO Ministerial Conference in Kenya yesterday decided to bring effective discipline in subsidies on fishing to conserve the fish resource worldwide.

Considering that the WTO must play a central role in achieving effective disciplines on fisheries subsidies that contribute to overfishing and overcapacity, and that action is urgently needed to control, reduce and eventually eliminate fisheries subsidies that contribute to overfishing and overcapacity; Australia, Argentina, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Fiji, Iceland, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Paraguay, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Solomon Islands, Switzerland, United States, Uruguay, Vanuatu and OECS Economic Union WTO Members (Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines) pushed in a "Fisheries Subsidies Ministerial Statement"  (I think NZ was the main driver, tho)

Their aim is "to continue to seek appropriate enhanced WTO transparency and reporting to enable the evaluation of the trade and resource effects of fisheries subsidies programmes,” according to the statement

The members agreed to reduce subsidies on fishing and recognise the crucial role of fisheries in ensuring food security, employment and livelihoods. 

However, India was not satisfied with the text on fisheries trade that has proposed punitive action for unauthorised fishing, something that many developing countries are not comfortable with given that it goes back on the tentative agreement reached in 2008. This is not surprising form India actually... from all the countries I worked (over 50 so far), none subsidises its fisherydirectly or indirectly via compensations) as much as them, nor have a completely lax internal MCS system... but then, from my experience, I think they bigger and more vital priorities.

overcapacity? 

Fisheries subsidies contribute to economic losses in the fisheries sector and create serious distortions in global fish markets and push fisheries beyond their realistic economic (and biological) models. I wrote about this here and here. They also produce serious impacts on food security and livelihoods, particularly in developing countries, and that effectively addressing fisheries subsidies will deliver trade, economic, development and environmental benefits.

The other interesting outcome,  not for fisheries but for other commodities is in regards:

Preferential rules of origin for LDCs

The Ministerial Conference adopted a decision that will facilitate opportunities for least-developed countries' export of goods to both developed and developing countries under unilateral preferential trade arrangements in favour of LDCs.

The decision in Nairobi builds on the 2013 Bali Ministerial Decision on preferential rules of origin for LDCs. The Bali Decision set out, for the first time, a set of multilaterally agreed guidelines to help make it easier for LDC exports to qualify for preferential market access.

The Nairobi Decision expands upon this by providing more detailed directions on specific issues such as methods for determining when a product qualifies as “made in an LDC,” and when inputs from other sources can be “cumulated” — or combined together — into the consideration of origin.  It calls on preference-granting members to consider allowing the use of non-originating materials up to 75% of the final value of the product.

The decision also calls on preference-granting members to consider simplifying documentary and procedural requirements related to origin.

Key beneficiaries will be sub-Saharan African countries, which make up the majority of the LDC Group, the proponent for the Nairobi Decision on Preferential Rules of Origin for LDCs. More information on rules of origin is available here; a briefing note on the negotiations for a Nairobi Decision is available here.

Thanks Chris Lord for the tip on this statements.

New rules proposed for the EU Distant Water Fishing Fleet

The new proposed regulation, will apply to all EU vessels fishing outside EU waters, wherever they operate and irrespective of the legal framework under which the fishing takes place.

These vessels will not be able to fish in third country waters or in the high sea unless they have been previously authorised by their flag Member State, i.e. the state under whose laws the vessel is registered or licensed.

Latest design French Purse Seiners

The fishing outside the EEZ authorisations is supposed to be already a standard under international law, so nothing new there! However what really interested me, is that to obtain authorisation they will have to show that they comply with a set of specific criteria– for instance that they have an International Maritime Organisation (IMO) number and a valid fishing license, and have not been found guilty of infringements.

The flag Member State, under the supervision of the European Commission, will have to check the vessel's information thoroughly before granting authorisation and will enter this information into an official register.

This should facilitate monitoring and record keeping of our vessels' activities abroad, with obvious advantages when it comes to enforcing the EU's rules. Having all EU vessels subject to the same set of rules inside and outside the EU also adds legal clarity and fairness for the sector, even in the case of private licensing and reflagging.

Third countries will benefit as well from the additional safeguards of stricter controls. And as the vessels' information will be partly made public, citizens will have a better overview of where and how their fish was caught. 

If this proposal is made into regulations (which i really hope they do), then PLEASE, make it a Market Access Requirement condition (claim equivalent measures) for fish from other fleets (China, Taiwan, Korea, etc) to enter the EU market at the same level than the Health or Catch Certificate. That would be a radical blow to IUU fishing.

The Fisheries Professor and the Ecolabels

I knew about professor Ray Hilborn's work before I meet him for first time in NZ, he did a lot work under a contract of the University of Washington and the NZ Seafood Industry Council. He is definitively a brilliant scientist and also has a rather controversial public persona.

Who eats who in the fisheries world?

Beyond his work, I appreciate the setting of perspectives in regards the sustainability and very limited total environmental impact of fishing in comparison with other forms of food production such as livestock and agriculture. Particularly as his wife run a organic farm and cooperative, so he also has that perspective really near him. 

His critics (mostly environmentalists and some other scientists) accuse him to be a whitewasher for the seafood industry, but I don't thing you get to be a professor at the most well know fishery university in the world if you don't have a solid scientific background, and his opinions are valid even if you disagree with them.

In any case he has been very vocal on his views on Ecolabels, (so do I, if you care to read my opinion)

In this post I'll quote a recent opinion piece he wrote for the CFOOD (Science of Fisheries Sustainability) project page. You make your own decisions, but the title alone says a lot.

Where is the science in seafood sustainability and certification?

Seafood sustainability is again in the news as the Global Seafood Sustainability Initiative (GSSI) released its tool for evaluating the sustainability of fisheries. The GSSI tool has drawn immediate criticism from World Wildlife Fund (WWF) as they recently published an article titled, “GSSI compliance does not indicate sustainability certification, WWF warns.” 

This is an interesting development since WWF is on the board of GSSI. GSSI is intended to provide an agreed standard for the wide range of certification and seafood labeling schemes. As their web site says “GSSI is a global platform and partnership of seafood companies, NGOs, experts, governmental and intergovernmental organizations working towards more sustainable seafood for everyone.” So who is right in this case, does the GSSI benchmarking tool tell you if a fishery is sustainable?

At its core, seafood sustainability is about the ability to produce food from the sea in the long term. Put another way, we can ask ‘Are the fishery and its management system operated in such a way that our grandchildren can still enjoy the same production from the fishery (subject to the constraints of external factors such as climate change) as we do today?’

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, whose charge is food security, has been a big supporter of the development of GSSI. For FAO sustainability is about continued food production. During the 1990s when overfishing in developed countries was at its height, many retailers supported seafood certification because they wanted to have products to sell in the future… again a focus on food sustainability. This interest spawned the development of a number of different ecolabels for seafood, of which the Marine Stewardship Council was one of the first. 

Wat do they really mean?

However, the newly emerging seafood ecolabels created their own criteria for the assessment of sustainability without necessarily using accepted standards such as the FAO criteria as a benchmark (although some clearly did anchor themselves to these criteria). While in many other areas of food production there are clearly defined and standards and compliance monitoring bodies, this was lacking for the fledgling seafood ecolabels. This lack of oversight led to the development of the GSSI from a German Government initiative to have clear benchmarking of ecolabel standards.

However environmental NGOs such as WWF are interested less in food sustainability, and more in reducing the environmental impacts of fishing on the wider ecosystem, whether that be catch of non-target species like sharks, or impacts of fishing gear on the seafloor. Of course, WWF together with Unilever initiated the development of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) in 1996, and hence not surprisingly WWF has been a strong supporter of the MSC which is perceived by many to be the leading certification scheme for sustainable fisheries.

The MSC standard covers much more than sustainable food production, and sets a high bar for environmental impacts of fishing and is continually evaluating and then improving the rigor of its own process. Yet some environmental NGOs reject MSC certification because they feel the environmental standards in MSC are not high enough. Even within WWF there emerge inconsistent messages with some national chapters of WWF rejecting the MSC standard.

Due to the support of a broad range of diverse stakeholders, GSSI poses a threat to the MSC fished because GSSI will add credibility to other consumer guides Consumer and retailers will continue to face a broad range of conflicting standards and hence seafood advice. Worse still, within the realm of acceptable environmental impacts, things become confused very quickly as there are so many different types of impacts with no consensus on which ones are more important than others. This is where fisheries certification moves from the arena of science to one based either on values or ‘expert’ judgement.

For consumers and retailers all that conflicting seafood advice is confusing. Take pollock from Alaska, the largest fishery in the US. This fishery is MSC certified, yet the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch does not rate it as a top choice, but as a “good alternative.” Greenpeace puts pollock on its red list.

Note: Same situation with the NZ Hoki fishery managed under an internationally peer review Quota Management System (QMS) has been certified by MSC since 2001, nevertheless, since 2010 Greenpeace added it to its seafood red list, as Greenpeace believes “the stocks of Hoki are now considered to be overfished”… so who is to believe?

Equally interesting is the conflict within the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch itself. Skipjack tuna is one of the largest fisheries in the world and provides most of the world’s canned tuna. Skipjack from the western Pacific are red, yellow and green on the Seafood Watch guide, depending on how they are caught. Purse seine fishing has by-catch of many species and is thus red, while pole-and-line fishing has less by-catch and is green. However, purse seining has a much lower carbon footprint than pole-and-line fishing — obviously, Seafood Watch puts more emphasis on by-catch than carbon footprint.

There is clearly a role for science in seafood sustainability. Science can determine if the management of a fishery will lead to long-term sustainability of food production. Science can evaluate the environmental impacts of a fishery. However, it would be very difficult for science at present to tell you what environmental impacts are low enough – that is a question of individual choice or public policy.

So where does this leave consumers, retailers and the rest of us interested in fisheries?

The answer is confused and likely to continue to be confused. GSSI was held out as a hope to sort out the conflicts in seafood labelling – given the WWF response it doesn’t seem that the eNGO community consider that it is likely that it will do so. However, the development of GSSI is a welcome step forward in that it at least provides a mechanism against which ecolabels for seafood can be assessed.

Highlighting those ecolabels that do meet any recognized minimum definition of responsible fishing (e.g. the FAO guidelines) will be a useful start and at least provide a clear division between those ecolabels that are mere green wash and those that have the potential to drive positive change in fisheries.

Jonathan Wara doing his job

The most interesting development in seafood sustainability is the force driving certification, and — spoiler alert — it isn’t consumers. Not too many people buy their fish based on sustainability ratings. Retailers, like your neighborhood Whole Foods, Costco or Safeway, do not want the media on their backs or an environmental NGO picketing their store for selling unsustainably harvested fish. They certainly want a continued supply of the fish they sell, but they also want to be seen as supporting sustainable fishing to avoid such protests, and they consider seafood certification that is backed by key NGOs like WWF as their protection. The logical next step was formal partnership agreements with the relevant NGO to advise them on what fish products to sell.

This is a dangerous development because the seafood certification turned partnership becomes a secure funding source for the NGO. Tim Wilson, in his 2012 paper, called this relationship between “friendly” NGOs that provide cover from “hostile” NGOs that might picket a retailer “naked extortion.” If, however, initiatives like GSSI were to be widely accepted, those steady sources of funds will dry up.

NGOs have been an important force in fisheries reform, but it is in the nature of NGOs that they must raise money to fund their activities, and alarmist appeals to stop fisheries collapses continue to bring in the big bucks. News of fisheries successes might, at best, raise an indifferent “meh.”

I know of many private conversations where quite reasonable NGO staff admit the need to find new crises to keep donations flowing. It’s no wonder, then, that, no matter how well fisheries are actually performing, the bar must be raised again and again to keep the story alive that fisheries are failing to meet the ever shape-shifting sustainability standards.

In the immortal words of Deep Throat — Follow the money! Science, poor beggar, has largely been lost.

Some news from the 12th session of the WCPFC in Bali

The WCPFC is the top body that makes the decisions in regards the tuna fisheries in the western pacific. The Commission holds annual meetings and is presided over by a Chairman and a Vice-Chairman, who are elected from amongst the membership and this year’s one just finished in Bali. Is at this level where you can see the confrontation in between fisheries science and management on one side and fisheries politics on the other… even if there is no a clear line in between them many times.

Some faces say it all... feeling for Rhea, Feleti and Lara... good people dealing with some very uncooperative ones (pic by FFA)

Decisions taken by the Commission are generally done by consensus. In cases where decisions have to be taken by vote, usually on substantive matters, a “two-chamber system” applies. The FFA members of the Commission comprise one chamber, while the non-FFA members form the other chamber. Decisions are taken by a three-fourths majority of those present and voting in each chamber and no proposal can be defeated by two or fewer votes in either chamber. This type of arrangement makes any substantial measure really hard to move forwards… as it gives the DWFN a huge say on matters that actually correspond to the Island Nations. On top of that you have the fisheries in the High Seas… normally the domain of the DWFN.

I have lot of admiration for my colleagues and friends that submit themselves to the grueling and frankly sometimes totally disheartening marathon meetings associated to these plenaries… I don't think I could do that type of work.

In this post, I will bring up some of the words and actions of friends/colleagues that were involved in this last session, as to exemplify some of the conflicts and topics covered. 

From start Executive Director Mr Feleti Teo said it is the collective responsibility of all members and stakeholders of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission to contribute to the solutions to rebuild overfished tuna stocks like Bigeye and by taking immediate urgent action. Teo, who himself hails from the small island of Tuvalu, which is a member nation of the Parties to Nauru Agreement, said since he took over at the WCPFC he has consistently advocated that in light of the scientific advice “doing nothing” is not an option for the Commission. “The status quo is untenable because the future consequences significantly outweigh the short term benefit that current efforts and fishing practises offer,”

Chief Executive Officer for the PNA, Dr Transform Aqorau said:  "Tuna catches in the eight PNA 200-mile exclusive economic zones (EEZs) have remained stable over the past five years, while catches on the high seas have increased dramatically over the same period for lack of control. Effort in the high seas has more than doubled in 2015. This is particularly troubling since purse seine bigeye catches in the high seas have been growing steadily, while purse seine bigeye catches in EEZs have been declining and catches in archipelagic waters have been steady. The anticipated large increases in bigeye catch on the high seas during 2015 can be expected to substantially damage the WCPFC’s bigeye conservation efforts.

Tuvalu has become the latest Parties to Nauru Agreement (PNA) member nation to implement the Vessel Day Scheme for its longline fishing industry, signing on to the scheme at the PNA meeting in Bali. Is only Kiribati that is not being collaborative to it for their own (and sometimes unexplainable) reasons

The Vessel Day Scheme recognizes that zone-based management is the way we want to manage our fisheries in the Pacific, and is based on the Purse seine model. We long know that the longline fishery is “out of control”, the approximately 3,000 longliners operating in the national and international waters have less than 5% observer coverage (vs 100% in the purseine),  and revenue to island nations has remained flat for 15 years, there is low reporting of tuna catch data, and high seas transshipment of tuna is the norm, which limits availability of catch data.

Note: Is very hard to get substantial observer coverage because the lengths of the trips, and the substantial difficulties in the living conditions on this vessels (the worst you can imagine). So we are working on this via video overseers (but this will come in another post) ☺

Papua New Guinea said that a notable concern for them at the current WCPFC annual meeting was fishing in the high seas and recommended urgent management intervention, they reiterated their call for effective and appropriate mechanisms to encourage member compliance with their obligations under the Conservation and Management Measures developed and adopted by the Commission. 

The High Seas and the Bigeye are perhaps the biggest disappointments of the meeting as PIC came away without a meaningful measure on tropical tuna species Bigeye, Skipjack and Yellowfin.
  
Both the chairperson Rhea Moss-Christian and the compliance manager Lara Manarangi-Trott tried hard to get WCPFC members to come to some common ground. But it was evident that certain DWFN (read China, Japan & Taiwan) were determined to derail the whole process. The plan to address the overfished status of bigeye tuna did not move forwards once again, as  the Commission has had to adhere to “consensus.”

Rhea made it clear from the onset that the status quo wasn’t an option: "We have been clear about our goals and our positions on the key issues before the Commission since we took up our roles this year. Our goals are not unknown to you. Given the lack of progress, we now need to consider other mechanisms. There will be some delegates here who would welcome a vote on the key issues before us. Others who don’t want change would obviously not welcome such a move. But it’s obvious the working groups are not reaching consensus in a way that delivers progress, so I am reviewing options for a conciliation process. This mechanism has precedent as a tool for moving things forward and may well benefit us here..." 

She called a special heads of delegation meeting to attempt to tackle blockages to agreement on action. Her intervention follows her warning late Friday that there may be a move to push the consensus driven body to its first-ever vote if progress isn’t made. She urged heads of delegation to prepare to compromise in order to bring about resolution to issues concerning the sustainability of tuna fisheries. She stepped into the process after deciding that the 40 members of the commission had not made sufficient process on conservation management methods with two days to the end of the meeting. Unfortunate to no avail…

some of the 2 faces of pacific tuna fishing

For a good brief of the highs and lows, my colleague Wez Norris (deputy director of FFA and sempiternal lender of his diving gear to me) made a great summary at the end of the session and responded some question that I transcribe below (original here)

FFA members came here with four highest priorities, and four high priorities and really happy to note there has been good progress on three of the highest priorities and one of the high priorities. 

So the commission has adopted a conservation and management measure for a target reference point for skipjack tuna and that is a really fundamental measure on a fundamental stock. It paved the way for more robust and strategic management frameworks and it is a great pay off for the hard work and the leadership that, particularly, the Parties to the Nauru Agreement have put in. They have been working on this for a long time. It has cost them money to get together and talk about it. It has taken a lot of support from SPC, FFA and the PNA office so it is an excellent pay off there. I think it is also significant to note that the final proposal that was adopted was actually a joint proposal between FFA members and Japan. And that is significant because Japan’s concerns about range contraction in the skipjack stock have been a very contentious point of discussions throughout this week so the fact that Japan and FFA members managed to find ways in the text to accommodate those different views about that issue sort of speaks to the maturity of the relationship between Japan and the Pacific Island countries. So, as I say, that was one of our highest priorities and the fact that it has been adopted was really positive. 

Secondly the Commission has adopted the work plan on development of harvest strategies and I think I have been through the background to that before but basically what that is useful for now is that it provides guidance to all stakeholders on how the commission intends to develop these management frameworks over the next couple of years and in doing so it mainstreams a lot of the work that is being done on the edges, a lot of work that PNA members have done for their own purposes, that Tokelau Arrangement participants have done on albacore and so on so now it is more a part of the commission. 

The third of the highest priorities that we have had success on is the development of a revised compliance monitoring scheme so this is the process that the commission uses to assess the level of implementation and compliance of members, so are they going home and implementing the obligations they take on. This has been an evolving measure over the last couple of years and there are some very significant changes that have been done to it this year. Things like better reflecting the fact that in some cases there are obligations that small island developing states can’t implement because of lack of capacity. So finding a way for the Commission to actually recognise that and actually put in place plans to improve the capacity of the small island developing states so it can comply, rather than it be simply a punitive measure that badges people as non-compliant. 

Unfortunately our fourth top priority was the adoption of a target reference point for albacore tuna and we weren’t able to get any movement on that so obviously we are deeply disappointed that such an important stock is going to sort of lag behind a year in terms of the development of a harvest strategy. 

Having said that the results of the new stock assessment are very threatening and very different from our previous understanding of the albacore stock. And they talk about relatively significant reductions in catch that are required just to keep the stock where it is at the moment let alone to rebuild it to the level that the Tokelau arrangement participants want to see for reasons of fishery profitability. So in some ways the reluctance of the inability of the distant water fishing nations to sign up to that target reference point even as an interim is understandable but the fact is that this fishery is just so important to those Tokelau arrangement countries that they can’t afford for the management to simply lag because the science has changed or the results ae threatening. So basically what that means is we have got to go back to the drawing board. We will continue our work internally on the development of the catch management scheme under the Tokelau arrangement and we will be using our recommendation for the target reference pint as the basis for that. 

We had some very positive and pro-active announcements from the Cook Islands as part of the negotiations indicating their willingness to take the difficult decisions provided it was part of a package of agreements from others as well. So we will just be looking to build on that momentum and work internally. 

At the same time, you know, we are calling on the distant water fishing nations to do their home work; to go home and go through some of the detail that they said they weren’t quite comfortable with here and we are looking forward to more discussions at the science committee and at the Commission again next year. 

On the albacore fishery tho the Commission has adopted some amendments on the current conservation and management measure that seeks to manage that stock; relatively small improvements but improvements none the less. 

The compliance committee has been saying over the last couple of years that because of various ambiguities in the measure. They haven’t been able to adequately assess implementation and compliance. So what we proposed this year and what the commission has agreed to has been some improvements in the data reporting requirements. So flag states will be required to provide a much greater level of detail than they ever have in the past. And that will give us a much better idea on what has happened in the last 10 years or so of the fisheries operations and where it is going from here on in. So, as I say, relatively small improvements but ones that will give us a better picture as to what is going on. In the meantime we have that internal wok going on catch management schemes and so on. So it is great that the other flag states were able to come on board and agree to those measures, because we have been proposing measures year after year since 2010 without success so this is at least a positive sign for the future. 

Unfortunately we didn’t gain any traction on our other three second-tier priorities, high priorities. The first one was a proposal to ban transhipment in the four high seas pockets in the convention area and one semi enclosed area between Kiribati, Tuvalu and Tokelau and that is a real shame because these areas are known IUU risks. 

Transhipment in those areas is known to be a risk of illegal fishing, in that vessels that are in there are operating under a lower degree of scrutiny than vessels that are operating in the EEZ’s that surround them, they are allowed to undertake transhipment under relatively loose oversight from their flag states and there has been a lot of evidence provided that vessels that are operating in those areas are not operating in accordance with all the rules of the commission. So it is a great shame that other commission members were unable to support that and it is very worrying that these flag states remain far more interested in defending the operational convenience of their vessels rather than putting in place proper management measures and enforcing those management measures. 

Equally, we are very frustrated that our proposal on Port State Measures wasn’t accepted. So our proposal was to strengthen the controls that each country uses when foreign vessels come into their ports in terms of the levels of inspection and information and communication sharing. We have worked hard over the last two years to try and develop a measure that is robust and meaningful but also addresses the elements of the FAO Port States measures that a lot of countries don’t like. So there is a global instrument agreed by the FAO on port State measures. FFA members have certain problems with that instrument and other commission members do as well so we have been trying to find the right balance between the elements that we do like out of it and avoiding the issues.

Unfortunately for at least some members we are still not there yet and so partially we are calling on them to tell us what more we can do to the measure to make it acceptable to them but partially also we will have to turn our view inwards now and simply work among ourselves as FFA members on our own measure for port state control because it has been two years now that we have been proposing this and we can’t simply avoid taking the management reforms for our ports just simply because we are waiting for a decision from the commission. 

Then, last but by no means least, the commission has again failed to improve on the management of the tropical tuna fisheries and in particular to take additional steps to reduce the fishing mortality on bigeye tuna. The lack of agreement does belie the level of effort that went into it. There was a serious effort on behalf of all embers and particularly led by the chair to get a deal done. And there was an emerging deal that had some potential to get through. Unfortunately where the commission fell down which is nothing new is trying to find the right balance between those countries that have purse seine interest and those countries that have longline interests. And the commission members simply couldn’t find the right balance. 

Now this is a particularly important issue for the FFA members and in particular the PNA members because it comes back down to this concept of disproportionate burden; the FAD closures which are one of the main components of the measure transfer what we call a disproportionate burden onto the small island developing states. It means they are suffering a cost that far outweighs the costs that are being borne by other commission members and far outweighs the benefits that they get for the conservation of bigeye tuna. So that is why PNA have been proposing a package of measures to improve the longline measures and to improve the purse seine measures because until you do start to get a better balance between the flow of costs and benefits then it is going to be very, very difficult, well impossible, to talk about further reductions in the purse seine fishery. 

The package of measures that the PNA members put on the table at the start of the meeting were used by the chair as the basis for her endeavours to secure an agreement, and as I say, the difference and the divergence between the two groups have meant it was just too much and there is very different perceptions about what is a fair contribution between each fishery depending on which country you talk to. So that is a deeply frustrating situation and what it really highlights, yet again is the fact that the way that the way the WCPFC approaches the management of fisheries needs to be fundamentally reviewed. 

The measure that is on the table is the product of negotiations over at least a ten year period and so it contains a real mix of measures; some measures are zone based, like it reflects the vessel day scheme for the regulation of purse seine effort. Other measures are FAD based, like the FAD closures and the FAD set limits which each flag state, Japan, Korea, and Chinese Taipei gets to decide on how they manage their fleet  and when you have that system of flag limits superimposed over exclusive economic zones you create lots of anomalies. You create the need for things like SIDs exemptions, because small island developing states as flag states, they are only just building their fleets now so they don’t have 50 years of catch history to fall back on like the developed fleets so it just doesn’t work. So we need to be doing things like moving towards establishing rights that are zonal rather than flag-based. This is nothing new. It is exactly what the vessel day scheme is. It is exactly what the longline vessel day scheme is and the emerging catch management scheme under the Tokelau arrangement for albacore. So these are the types of more strategic discussions that need to be happening now. It is quite clear that simply the concept of amending this paragraph is not going to work. We have tried it the last two years without any movement at all so now we need to step back and say ‘how are we going to manage these fisheries?’ 

The commission has agreed that a new strategic plan will be developed for the WCPFC and we think that is an excellent idea and we think that will be a really good vehicle for the WCPFC to have some of this higher level debate, and to have it not focussed on the context of how to manage bigeye tuna, to have it as a more strategic thing about ‘how should we be going about our job?’

Bigeye stocks
It is always very difficult for the science community to predict the outcomes of any management measure, particularly one as complicated as this. It has got so many moving parts. So many choices that different countries can make on how they do things but the modelling that SPC has done that under any combination of the options that are available to all the countries the measure is not going to achieve its objectives. Its objectives are to remove the overfishing of the bigeye; so to reduce the fishing mortality to the levels which will produce maximum sustainable yield. 
Having said that it does clearly show that the measure is having a positive impact; it has reduced FAD sets, it has reduced longline catches and it has improved the amount of information that is available. The modelling also suggests that the measures that are in place right now will contribute to increasing the spawning biomass so as you say the spawning biomass at the moment is at 16 per cent of unfished levels and the measure that is in place will assist that to rebuild. The issue is ‘does it do so strongly enough?’ and the answer clearly is ‘no’. So in terms of overall effectiveness what is really needed is a relatively minor series of improvements but unfortunately because of the evolution of the measure those minor improvements are turning out to be impossible to agree to. So I think overall, the outlook in the short-term is not overly pessimistic. We will see a stock improvement but it is not a stock improvement anyone would go boasting about. So the commission really does have its work cut out for it to say ‘well, this measure expires by 2017. By this time we have to have a really good idea on how we are going to fix this thing. 

There are programs in the wings that will contribute to this. The PNA members are commencing a FAD charging trial as of 1st January and what this endeavours to do is use market forces to regulate fishing behaviour. So any day you go fishing and you set on a FAD you pay an extra fee basically and so basically what that does is force the vessel operator to choose ‘is it worth me setting on this FAD? Am I going to catch that much more fish and earn that much more money, that makes it worthwhile paying this fee?’ And eventually over time we see these sorts of market based measures as replacing some of the regulatory measures so we’ve got a four month FAD closure in place at the moment at some stage we hope it can go down to a 3 month FAD closure because FAD sets generally are being reduced by this economic 

not in the high seas... but a transhipment nevertheless 

High Seas Transhipments
There’s been a lot of discussion on transhipment throughout the week both in the context of the Tropical Tuna Measure and our proposal on the high seas pockets and it’s really disappointing. The convention itself talks about reducing, as far as possible, transhipment. The CMM that was agreed in 2009 sets a very high bar for what you have to satisfy before you allow your vessels to tranship on the high seas. And that hasn't been lived up to by the major flag states. There are blanket exemptions they have issued that allow their vessels to continue fishing and the argument they use is simply one of convenience and economics.

The vessels don’t want to steam from the high seas into ports where they can be monitored and be properly observed. It is as simple as that! And sure there is an argument for that, no one is going to volunteer to do that, but it is certainly possible for fleets to do that. Let me use the EU Longline fleet as an example. It fishes a lot on the high seas. It conducts all of its transhipment in port because the EU makes them. So they have to steam from their fishing grounds into port and unload where they can be properly monitored and so on. It certainly can be done and flag states have an obligation to move down that path and they are really not doing it at the moment so this is going to be a big ticket item for next year. 

I think as we've seen with our proposal this year to ban transhipment in that area not being successful, we can expect a fairly prolonged and bitter resistance to it but that doesn't mean it’s not a good idea and it doesn't mean we shouldn't invest the time to start it. None of these things can happen overnight and none of them should happen overnight so again, it’s a matter of working with the DWFNs that are using those areas, and trying to work out where there are avenues where we can pull different levers.

Port State Measures
One of the issues we have faced internally is making sure that before you sign up to an obligation to have certain levels and standards of inspection, to make sure that you've actually got the capacity to do those. And so in the measure that we've crafted it provides the avenue for SIDS to build up that capacity and then take on the obligations. That has been the main concern in the past. The sort of chicken and egg type thing. 

There is absolute commitment to improving monitoring. The FFA members already have the most fundamental of the monitoring systems in the pacific, probably 80% of the log-sheet data that is available to the SPC comes from FFA members collecting it from vessels observers are all provided by the member countries the VMS is run from Honiara and so on. So they have a long history of being prepared to implement monitoring systems even in their own scrutiny over their own ports or their own fleets. 

State of the Pacific Ports
Most of the major ports in the region used by foreign vessels are in FFA members. They have very busy ports like Majuro, Pohnpei Funafuti and Tarawa. And so when you've got literally hundreds of vessels doing port calls a year if you're required to do a minimum level of inspection then you need a decent pool of inspectors you need the computer systems to be able to handle the data they are collecting and so on and so forth so I think it would be fair to say they all have concerns about their ability to increase that none of them have extra inspectors that are just sitting around at the moment. 

Jobs and Resourcing
Under the Roadmap for the Future of Fisheries the Pacific islands leaders adopted in Port Moresby earlier this year we have a goal of doubling the employment in the fishing related industry and that is obviously largely in the private sector through employment and processing facilities and employment on fishing vessels but managing fisheries is getting more and more complex and therefore its taking more and more people and so yeah the development of Port State Measures that require highly trained and highly skilled inspectors is a good boost to employment. The observer program is now a very large employer there’s over 800 observers in the region and they are relatively well paid positions and so on. 

Thefuture of processing in the pacific is going to face some quite significant challenges. We have a very large number of forces acting against the ease of development. The tyranny of distance, where product that is processed in the Pacific has to travel further to get to markets, we have issues where labour costs in most PI countries are higher than SE Asia, utility costs like electricity are higher and so on. But the huge advantage that the PICs have is the raw material. They control the supply of most of the world’s raw (tuna) material and so they certainly have the ability to regulate where that goes and where it gets processed and with the right type of investors and the right type of commercial partnerships, you can make that work. You can make the supply of raw material that you own to processing facilities that you have some sort of an interest in, and make it economical. Obviously market preferences are very important and that is an ongoing body of work both with existing markets and new ones to try and sort of develop more avenues than we have at the moment.  

tuna: many want it... few have it... no one wants to pay its real price.

China
The main issue we have with China is about the reform of the albacore fishery. On the one hand it was very positive they were able to agree to the additional data reporting requirements in the CMM but on the other hand they are just finishing this very large fleet expansion program and obviously that its inconsistent with our push to reduce catch in the fishery to achieve the TRP. So our call to them is to find a way to work with us, find a way we can sit down together and we can talk about the importance of the albacore fishery to the Pacific island countries and more importantly, we can talk about the opportunities for a partnership approach in trying to manage it.

Simply avoiding management is not in anyone’s interests; it’s not in the interests of the Chinese fleet because while they may be operating economically at the moment if the stock continues to decline they certainly won’t be. It’s certainly not to the advantage of the FFA members because they are reliant on these fisheries and we’ve already got fleets tied up. So yeah, our call to them is just work with us. And at some point every country needs to embrace the science. If we all simply ignore the science, or pretend the science is incorrect, then we will watch the fishery go down the gurgler. And there is a litany of failed fisheries around the world where fisheries managers have done exactly that so were calling on them to embrace the science if there are legitimate issues with it, then let’s work them. Let’s work them in the SC and in the commission but let’s roll up our sleeves and get something done on albacore. 

China's Fleet Expansion
Unfortunately because of the lack of the data reporting requirements that have been in the CMM up until now we don’t have a clear picture on exactly what vessels have come in and where they’ve been. But we do know the Chinese fleets have expanded by 400 vessels and these are 400 new efficient vessels, they are quite small, they are fibreglass. They have low operating costs but the ability to set very large numbers of hooks so you can have a look at the catch data for the Chinese fleet....which I can pull up for you if you like and it has expended tens of thousands of tonnes in the last 5 years. So they've done this huge ramp up which they've been very transparent about but that doesn't really help us in a fishery where were trying to put the brakes on and trying to actually pull back on, having one player just quite brazenly expanding their fleet that makes it difficult to achieve some kind of consensus type management. 

The political relationships that China is trying to build probably pave the way for us try and address their fisheries approach because it is one avenue where, as I say, they could take a partnership approach and that would then have benefits both the fisheries and to the geopolitical relationship. We look at partnerships at two levels and there are obviously political partnerships and there are certain implications of that when it comes to China but then there are also commercial partnerships and even in countries that don’t have a recognition with China there are Chinese companies investing and operating in those countries and so there still is a platform of cooperation there. 

FFA Japan relationship
I wouldn't say that Japan and FFA members are always on the same page but we have a very mature relationship of being able to sit down and work through issues and Japan makes a really concerted effort to understand the positions that FFA members take and to find a way to work with them. We don’t have that level of relationship with some of the other CCMs and in particular China, Chinese Taipei and Korea. And that’s no criticism to them, that’s obviously our responsibility as well, to build those relationships and to work out how to cooperate better with them. 

In the past we’ve endeavored to arrange informal visits where either the FFA secretariat or a small group of members will visit whoever it is we are trying to build a relationship with. On other occasions we’ve invited reps down to meet with the FFC when it’s meeting in annual meetings and so on. So I think there are a number of ways of doing it but the lesson were learning is don’t wait until the WCPFC meeting to try and cooperate with each other. This has to be done well before so that people...lots of people when they arrive here they've got their formal position and so we need to make sure that those formal positions accommodate a level of cooperation with us already. 

Some good news for sharks

In March 2013, Parties to CITES added porbeagle and oceanic whitetip sharks, three species of hammerhead sharks—scalloped, great, and smooth—as well as all species of manta ray to CITES Appendix II. Appendix II listed species can still be traded legally but only if the trade does not cause a detriment to the species in the wild.

Pew Fundation recently released a report on the CITES work on this topic. It seems that Hong Kong is playing (finally) ball... but as I mention in some post before (here and here), this is only the legal side :-)

all roads lead to Rome... all shark fins go to Hong Kong

Over 50% of the annual global shark fin trade passes through Hong Kong SAR, making effective implementation of the CITES listings there particularly important.  Hong Kong SAR imported 5,759 metric tons of shark fin and other shark products in 2014, according to data from its Census and Statistics Department.

Hong Kong’s Agriculture, Fisheries, and Conservation Department (AFCD) has been at the forefront of global efforts to implement the new listings, ensuring that Hong Kong SAR is fully compliant with CITES obligations.

On top of strong domestic legislation to implement the listings, AFCD has run more than a week’s worth of workshops, helping train customs and enforcement officials on how to visually identify fins from the listed species. The agency is also supported by the Government Laboratory, which has developed genetic testing protocols to confirm whether fins come from listed species.

The importation of shark fins into Hong Kong SAR is being monitored, and CITES-listed species are being allowed in only when their exports were authorized by exporting countries. Fins from these species traded without permits are now confiscated upon arrival in Hong Kong SAR.

How easy is to get permits in some countries, is definitively the next question

Climate Change Negotiations

Climate change is a really complex issue and is difficult to take perspective of what are the issues and "who" is to blame (like if that is to help).

This little video by "The Economist" ads to that understanding and discussion.

The Ocean Prosperity Roadmap: Fisheries and Beyond

Recently published, a new collection of research designed to inform decision makers, including governments and investors, on effective ocean and coastal resource management strategies to maximize economic, conservation and societal benefits.

The research demonstrates how governance and management reform can reduce poverty while achieving economic gains, increasing food production, replenishing fish and conserving ocean health for future generations. This is especially true in the case of wild capture fisheries.

I would be presenting some of the research in the blog, but is always better to go to the source (as good scientist I’m) but if you want a digest, then stay here ☺

Country-Level Costs vs. Benefits of Improved Fishery Management

This came out in May, and is supported by a “stars” filled group of fisheries scientists… most analyses of fisheries often demonstrate the potential biological, economic, and social benefits of fisheries recovery, but few studies have incorporated the costs associated with the design and implementation of the management systems needed to achieve recovery. 

Using available data and anecdotes they suggest that the current cost of fishery management may be quite substantial and that additional costs arising from major upgrades in management could be prohibitive in some countries.  Their analysis focused on OC (Output Controls) and CS (Catch Shares - Quotas)  Scenarios of Management measure and compared them a Business as Usual Scenario

A careful analysis comparing the country-level benefits of fishery management improvements to the additional costs of doing so has never been undertaken. Therefore, a study focusing on the current and incremental costs of fishery management upgrades could have important implications for policy design to efficiently rebuild global fisheries. 

This analysis has three objectives. The first is to estimate the current cost of managing fisheries in the top fishing countries of the world. The second is to estimate, for a range of alternative management approaches, the concomitant change in cost, also at the country level. Finally, they combine these cost estimates with recent estimates of the economic benefits of fishery recovery to arrive at a cost-benefit calculation of improved fishery management around the world.

This comparison determines if the expected economic benefits of a suite of fishery management reforms are greater than the management costs associated with those reforms. The analysis is decidedly practical: our goal is to derive ballpark estimates of these values to ultimately inform the question of whether the potential benefits can justify the likely increase in management costs.

Methodology

There are five major steps to completing this analysis. First, they estimate the cost of managing fisheries for all major fishing countries in the world and standardize by the cost per metric tonne (MT). This step is accomplished by developing a cost database including as many countries as possible and then imputing cost, based on the available data, for countries with limited data. They then focus on the 25 countries with largest fish catch.

Second, They categorize the landings in each country by management type. The third and fourth steps are developing and implementing a model of incremental management cost parameterized with cost data, fishery management data, and a survey of global fishery management experts to estimate the future costs of alternative management interventions using.

Finally, using projected profits in the year 2050 associated with different management interventions, they compare the economic benefits of management reform with the estimated costs associated with the new management in each country.

Results

They find substantial variation in current management costs across countries (approximately an order of magnitude difference in management cost per MT) and that incremental costs of upgrading fishery management can be quite substantial (in some countries, this could involve a doubling or tripling of management cost). Despite these results, our overall finding is that in every country examined, the benefits of reform substantially outweigh the incremental costs in management. This result holds across a wide range of assumptions and is consistent with empirical data, new case studies, and ad hoc interviews conducted with fishery managers in countries that have already undergone these welfare-improving transitions.

OC and CS  Scenarios Compared to BAU, 2050

Figures below shows the incremental cost vs. the incremental benefit of fishery management reform, where each country is represented by a single point. The size of the point indicates the size of the fishing sector in that country measured in total harvest (in MT) for 2012. Therefore, larger dots represent counties with higher annual landings in 2012. The top panels provide results for CS vs. BAU and the bottom panels provide results for OC vs. BAU.

Difference between future profits and management costs: CS Scenario and OC Scenario compared to BAU. Benefit-cost-ratios are capped at 10 in the figures on the right.

Difference between future profits and management costs: CS Scenario and OC Scenario compared to BAU. Benefit-cost-ratios are capped at 10 in the figures on the right.

Three results immediately pop out. The first is that when considering reforming all fisheries in a country to some form of CS, we find that the cumulative benefits always exceed the costs (all dots are above the 1:1 line on the top left panel and all benefit cost ratios exceed 1.0 on the top right panel). Indeed, the benefit cost ratios range from just over 1.0 up to 82 or more, averaging at about 29. The global benefit cost ratio average for catch share management is 34. These results are at the country level and do not necessarily imply that the benefits of switching to catch share management will outweigh the costs in each fishery. Instead, this result compares the aggregate benefits of moving to CS against the aggregate costs of doing so.

The second result is that the large fishing countries tend to also have the largest benefit cost ratios – it turns out that the larger a country’s catch, the more it stands to gain from aggressive fishery management reforms.

The third result is that while the numerical results are somewhat muted when moving from BAU to OC, most countries would still benefit from such a shift. The global cost of managing all fisheries in our database under catch share management in 2050 is about USD 11.09 billion, which is not quite double the global cost of BAU (USD 6.21 billion) and 2012 current global management costs (USD 5.76 billion).

Discussion

Two interpretations emerge from this study: First, while adopting effective catch shares is likely to entail the largest incremental increases in management cost, it is also likely to lead to even more significant increases in economic rent or profit. In fact, expert opinion suggests that depending on how well fisheries are already managed, the cost of switching to catch share management might even lower costs relative to BAU, which would further strengthen our main results. If some of that increase in profit can be captured to pay for the change in management cost (indeed, only a small fraction of it would be required in most countries), then the policy reform would be win-win. 

A key question that comes up when considering management costs is who should pay. It has been argued because the fishing industry benefits from management services, it should pay the costs associated with that management. Generally, taxpayers end up paying for these services, which are in turn provided by the government. 
Importantly, the benefits depicted in these results do not reflect individual fisheries, but the generalized benefits at the national level. Specific fisheries might benefit differently from management changes, and effective catch shares will surely require careful design tailored to each fishery. 

In addition, while this study suggests that those directly employed by the fishing industry could experience an increase in profits with a shift from less effective management to catch shares, and to a lesser extent, strong output controls, it does not investigate the implications of management reform down the supply chain. The value of this sector could potentially decrease with management that requires decreases in harvests. More research is needed to determine the economic implications of improved management on other related sectors.

The finding that adopting OC is still beneficial, but not as beneficial as adopting CS, is not too surprising, particularly given our assumption that securing long-run economic profit is still possible under OC. While output controls alone can be effectively implemented to regulate catch and achieve conservation objectives, there is a strong theoretical argument that they cannot ensure significant long-run profits, because rents will be dissipated by excessive effort on unregulated margins.

Thus, they regard the OC scenario as an intermediate case between open access and fully rent-capturing catch shares. As such, the profit upside from OC will always be lower than the profit upside from CS. While it is also true that our results suggest lower management costs under OC (than CS), they are not sufficiently low to make OC more attractive than CS.

Future work

There are a number of ways in which this study could be built upon to further examine the relationship between costs and fisheries management. First, while this study focused on the annual cost of management after management reform has been implemented, studies and interviews indicate that transition costs can be significant. During the transition period, the reform is designed and planned. This stage can be labor intensive and take a substantial amount of time, thus incurring significant fixed costs. In addition, it may require expensive research efforts to guide reform design. Including this expense would capture a more comprehensive cost of fisheries management.

Second, future studies could expand on this work by developing a more precise model for determining changes in management cost, for example by incorporating complexities in rules and regulations such as bycatch regulations, limits on days at sea, gear restrictions, and required reporting and analysis likely to influence the costs of administration, research, and enforcement services. 

Finally, while the country-level approach used in the current study is useful for making decisions at the national level, a fishery level-approach might provide key insights for managers working on the reform of individual fisheries. This approach would require fishery-level data on the cost associated with management attributes specific to fishery type. Importantly, improved data on the cost of managing fisheries at both the country and fishery level would facilitate more precise analyses.

Conclusion 

The research highlighted here demonstrates that when governments implement and enforce strong policies and regulations to manage their fisheries sustainably, the benefits are mutually reinforcing: fish production increases; economic profits rise; and fish stocks recover and rebuild. The path to sustainable fisheries will require not only reform by government, but also accompanying practices such as an improved business environment, increased transparency, and sound science and careful monitoring. Collectively, these practices create a synergy that helps enable the transition to sustainable fisheries management. 

One of the remaining challenges is determining how best to finance the comprehensive costs of reform, particularly during the transition period. We believe there are emerging opportunities for all sectors to contribute to the transition to sustainable management, from the private sector and public finance playing an innovative role in financing the transition, to the research community providing critical and timely data as well as innovative technologies that can enable smart policy decisions. 

The rewards of sustainable management have never been higher—and the costs of inaction have never been more clear—in unlocking the underlying potential of global fisheries.

Climate Change and Fisheries

I get asked often about this issue… A truly complicated topic I know very little about (and I believe not many people do really know a lot about it). Its really complex and truly interesting, since it adds a full new set of variables to fisheries management, which is per se already multifaceted.

A few years ago, SPC published an interesting book (Vulnerability of Tropical Pacific Fisheries and Aquaculture to Climate Change), that in my opinion still leads the pack and what is (could?) be happening. 
 
The build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is acting in two major ways that are ultimately expected to affect fisheries and aquaculture in the tropical Pacific.

First, the accumulation of greenhouse gases is trapping more of the heat that would normally escape from the Earth, leading to an overall increase in global surface Temperature. The oceans have absorbed almost 80% of the additional heat, acting as a buffer against more rapid atmospheric warming. However, the continued uptake of this extra heat has wide-ranging implications for marine resources.

Generalised effects of increased greenhouse gases on oceanic and coastal ecosystems in the tropical Pacific

Thermal expansion of the ocean, together with melting of land ice, is resulting in rising sea levels. Increases in ocean temperatures are also changing the strength and direction of currents, and making surface waters more stable, reducing vertical mixing and the availability of nutrients in the upper layer of the ocean. Reductions in the supply of nutrients usually limit the primary production at the base of the food chains that support fisheries.

Warmer oceans also cause changes in atmospheric circulation patterns, giving rise to regional changes in climate. In the tropical Pacific, greater evaporation and moisture availability are expected, leading to an intensification of the hydrological cycle, and a pole ward expansion and possible slow down of the Hadley circulation. As a result, rainfall is projected to increase in tropical areas of the Pacific and decrease in subtropical areas, although there is still considerable uncertainty about the regional pattern of projected changes. There is also the possibility that warmer conditions may result in more intense cyclones and storms, resulting in rougher seas, more powerful waves and greater physical disturbance of coastal environments.

The second way that increasing greenhouse gases are expected to affect fisheries and aquaculture is through changes to oceanic concentrations of CO2 and the resulting effect on ocean acidity. The ocean has absorbed more than 30% of human CO2 emissions since the beginning of the industrial revolution and it is now more acidic than at any time during the last 800,000 years.

This effect is largely independent of global warming but also has grave consequences for marine ecosystems. The dissolved CO2 reacts with sea water to form weak carbonic acid, which reduces the availability of dissolved carbonate required by many marine calcifying organisms to build their shells or skeletons.

There is serious concern that continued emissions of CO2 will drive sufficient gas into the sea to cause under-saturation of carbonate in some areas of the ocean this century. Where this happens, the environment will favour dissolution rather than formation of carbonate shells and skeletons.

Nature of effects of climate change on fisheries and aquaculture worldwide

The basis of tuna production in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean, and the main methods used to harvest tuna

We already know that variations in climate on time scales of years to decades can cause significant changes in fisheries production. For example, catches of Peruvian anchovies have varied between < 100,000 tonnes and > 13 million tonnes since 1970 as a result of changes in ENSO46,47. The different phases of the ENSO cycle also determine the distribution of skipjack tuna in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean – the fish move further east during El Niño events and further west during La Niña episodes ( I wrote about this here and here)

Over and above normal year-to-year variations, longer-term changes in physical oceanography and biology, known as regime shifts, can have major consequences for the species composition and productivity of fisheries. Some heavily fished stocks have collapsed due to the additive effects of environmental and fishing stresses.

However, the effects of such changes in climate have not always been negative. For example, a period of ocean warming around Greenland starting in 1925 resulted in a northern extension in the range of cod by > 1000 km and the creation of an international fishery of up to > 400,000 tonnes per year.

Questions abound for fisheries management. Will the species that currently support substantial harvests still be available as climate change continues? If not, which types of species are most likely to replace them? For those species that continue to support fisheries, will climate change reduce the capacity for replenishment and production, and increase the risk of overfishing? How should managers and policymakers respond to the projected changes to maintain sustainable benefits from fisheries? How will fishers perceive and react to the risks associated with projected changes? Will fishing at sea become more hazardous? How much will it cost to adapt?

Potential impact of climate change on fisheries and aquaculture in the tropical Pacific

The range of coastal fisheries activities in the tropical Pacific, and the habitats that support them.

All fisheries and aquaculture activities in the region are likely to be affected by climate change. The distribution and abundance of tuna, which dominate oceanic fisheries and are the mainstay of the economies of some smaller PICTs1, are influenced largely by water temperature and the availability of nutrients. 

The coastal fisheries that currently provide much of the animal protein for Pacific islanders14, and the contribution of aquaculture to the economies of French Polynesia and Cook Islands, are based largely on coral reef habitats. These habitats are threatened by changes to water temperature, acidification of the ocean and sea-level rise, and possibly more severe cyclones and storms.

The freshwater fisheries of PNG have evolved in a climate of heavy rainfall and any major alterations in precipitation can be expected to change the nature of these resources, on which hundreds of thousands of people rely.
Preliminary analysis has already identified the following possible effects of climate change on fisheries and aquaculture production in the tropical Pacific from climate change:

Changes to the distribution and abundance of tuna: Alterations in ocean temperatures and currents and the food chains that support tuna, are projected to affect the location and abundance of tuna species21,48. In particular, the concentrations of skipjack and bigeye tuna are likely to be located further east than in the past. This has implications for the long-term management of the region’s tuna resources, and for the development and profitability of national industrial fishing fleets and canneries in the western Pacific.

Decline in coral reefs and coastal fisheries: Rising sea surface temperatures and more acidic oceans are projected to have direct impacts on coral reefs and the habitats and food webs they provide for reef fish and invertebrates. Degraded coral reefs are likely to support different types of fish and lower yields of some species. Reduced catches of reef-associated fish will widen the expected gap between the availability of fish and the protein needed for food security.

Difficulties in developing aquaculture: Changing patterns of rainfall and more intense storms could flood aquaculture ponds more regularly in some places, and make small pond farming for food security impractical in others due to more frequent droughts. There could also be higher financial risks associated with coastal aquaculture as a result of (1) greater damage to infrastructure and equipment from rising sea levels and the possibility of more severe cyclones and storms; and (2) the effects of higher water temperatures, ocean acidification, reduced salinity and increased incidence of disease on the growth and survival of shrimp, pearl oysters, seaweed and ornamental specimens90.

Increased operating costs: Projections that cyclones and storms could possibly become progressively more intense would involve increased risk of damage to shore-based facilities and fleets for domestic tuna fishing, and processing operations. Fleets operating within the cyclone belt may need to be upgraded to provide improved safety at sea. Rising sea level may eventually make many existing wharfs and shore-based facilities unusable. Taken together, increased costs associated with repairing and relocating shore-based facilities, and addressing increased risks to occupational health and safety for fishers, may affect the profitability of domestic fishing operations. Such increased costs will need to be taken into account by PICTs when planning the optimum mix of developing local industries for tuna and providing continued access for DWFNs.

Reality is that the main findings are mixed – there are likely to be winners and losers – underscores the importance of this vulnerability assessment. Practical adaptations, policies and investments are now needed to reduce the threats of climate change to the many fisheries and aquaculture activities that are part of the economic and social fabric of the region. Adaptations, policies and investments are also needed to capitalise on the opportunities. 

Otherwise we will keep running behind the ball (as usual)… unfortunately I don’t see that happening.

Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs) are not a fad...

Fish aggregating devices (FADs) are artificial floating objects, specifically constructed to attract pelagic fish. Typically, they consist of a floating raft, submerged synthetic netting. Many this days have a “marker” of a satellite buoy that allows a fishing vessel to return to a specific location. They can be anchored or drifting ones, and they are as many design types as people deploying them! 

Many fish species naturally congregate near objects floating in the ocean, a fact that is the basis of FADs existence. How they work still debated, but here is a good talk about then.

FADs have become widely adopted as a means of improving fisheries production. In most cases, the effects of FADs—both positive and negative—are not monitored, and there is no real information on the true impacts of sometimes very costly FADs on local fisheries.

A good manual on their design use and cost efectivines has been produced by SPC here

The Pew Environment Group evaluated that FAD deployments have more than doubled since 2006 in the eastern Pacific Ocean alone. Without being as scientific my personal evaluation trouhj my wrk documents, will say the same about the western pacific.

Still, there are few regulations for fishermen or vessel owners to follow, and no penalties for deliberately abandoning FADs at sea when they are no longer deemed useful or productive. 

Some RFMOs have measures intended to improve the monitoring of drifting FADs, but the overall lack of standarised regulation makes counting these objects difficult.

Information on FAD deployments remains hard to find. Much of the data that would be needed to develop a precise estimate of their numbers exist but are confidential as industry invest heavily on the construction and electronics of it (just think how much 3 km of Polyethylene line will cost!) and they don't want other companies to use their FADS, so this information proprietary

In 2012 Pew took on the task of developing a ‘back of the envelope’ estimate of how many drifting FADs are currently in use, while acknowledging that it would be a challenging exercise and the results both imperfect and preliminary. Collating data gathered using three separate methodologies, they estimated that in 2011 the number of drifting FADs put into the oceans each year ranges from 47,000–105,000. 

Using data on fishing obtained since then, along with new scientific research and an examination of recent trends in FAD use and technology, Pew has produced updated estimates indicating that the total number of drifting FADs deployed in 2013 ranged from 81,000 to 121,000. The upper estimate has increased by 14 percent since the calculations for 2011.

Other analyses have come to similar conclusions. For instance, the European Commission released a report in 2014 estimating that 91,000 drifting FADs are deployed annually. Meanwhile, new initiatives are underway to better track and understand FAD use. For example, three French purse seine companies, operating in the Atlantic and Indian oceans, provided researchers with detailed tracking data of FAD movements to create the most extensive analysis yet of how FADs move in those ocean areas.

Parties to the Nauru Agreement, a group of eight Pacific island states that have the world’s largest skipjack fishery within their waters, plans to implement an electronic tracking system that will allow monitoring of FAD numbers and locations in near real time to better understand the impact on the tropical tuna fishery. This will provide useful data to fisheries scientists and managers on the use of tens of thousands of drifting FADs in the western and central Pacific Ocean.

Starting in 2017, the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) will require vessels to provide additional FAD data and physically mark their FADs with unique identification codes.

Given the practical and feasible steps available to improve FAD management, they have been calls on RFMOs and fishing entities to:

• Harness the data collected by drifting FADs to develop science-based regulatory measures for use of the devices to minimize bycatch and catches of vulnerable species, 
• Establish comprehensive monitoring and tracking systems to accurately quantify and monitor FAD use, improve tuna stock assessments, and ascertain the contribution of FADs to marine debris.
• Set up licensing and registration systems to hold vessels accountable for the FADs they deploy.

Recently I quoted Dr. Shelton Harley presentation at the TunaForum in Fiji, where he reckon (and I totally agree) that sun powered/satellite data transmission capable Sonar devices attached to FADs are a massive game changer and complex development.

In the past the vessel  had to go to their FADs and then see if there was fish around it; with this technology fleet managers from the desk somewhere in the world can direct the vessels to the FADs that are showing signal. Here is an example of what you can buy this days.

As anything in fisheries, there are no easy answers… in these aspects i always refer to something I learned many years ago: “the risk is never in the substance, is always in the dose”

WCPFC’s Eleventh Technical and Compliance Committee (TCC11)

The WCPFC’s Eleventh Technical and Compliance Committee (TCC11) met in Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia on 23-29 September to discuss technical and compliance matters in advance of WCPFC12 (and as always a mix bag)

TCC is responsible for administering the Commission’s Compliance Monitoring Scheme (CMM 2014-07). During the annual TCC meeting a review is conducted in a closed working group session of compliance of Commission members’ and cooperating non-members’ (CCMs) with obligations established in the WCPFC Convention, scientific data requirements, Commission Decisions and Conservation and Management Measures (CMMs). 

TCC11 marked the fifth year of implementation of the Compliance Monitoring Scheme, with several days dedicated to conducting the compliance monitoring review. The compliance of 36 CCMs was reviewed with a priority list of over 100 obligations for 2014 (however the report is password protected :-( )

A three-tiered system of rating compliance was applied for the second year running, where members are rated for each obligation as compliant (green), non-compliant (orange) or priority non-compliant (red) (when a CCM is non-compliant for an obligation for two or more years, is breaching catch limits and/ or is not submitting Annual Reports). If a CCM is in compliance with all assessed obligations, TCC recommends an overall compliant rating to WCPFC. 

Following the compliance monitoring review process, TCC11 developed a Provisional Compliance Monitoring Report to be forwarded to WCPFC12 for consideration which includes a provisional assessment of each CCM’s compliance status and recommendations for corrective action, as well as issues arising during the compliance monitoring review process and requests for assistance and capacity building. 

While CMM 2014-07 includes provisions for responses to non-compliance, including the establishment of a small working group to identify a range of responses to non-compliance, this issue was not progressed by TCC11. Since the current Monitoring Scheme measure expires in 2015, time was also spent during TCC11 to develop proposed text to extend the Scheme into 2016 and beyond. 

No one is dodgy... is all a misunderstanding 

In previous years, a key TCC concern was continued failure of South Korea, Japan, Chinese Taipei and China to provide operational level data, which compromises the ability of the Commission to carry out its compliance functions, as well as reducing the robustness of stock assessments. At WCPFC11, operational level data requirements were included in the CMM on tropical tunas (CMM 2014-01) to help address this issue. TCC11 noted there has been significant progress in the provision of operational data from Korea and China, but further improvements are still required. Further progress is expected in 2016. 

Discussions on the Regional Observer Program touched on the paramount concern for health and safety of observers, particularly in light of the recent case of a US-observer going missing from a Panamanian carrier in Peru, as well as other reported cases of harassment, intimidation and assault. WWF delivered a strong statement to TCC11 about the critical issue of observer health and safety and indicated that it will be pushing for market-based sanctions for companies/fishing vessels who violate observer health and safety. WWF’s position was supported by several WCPFC CCMs. 

TCC11 discussed proposed amendments to existing WCPFC CMMs as well as new CMMs for consideration by WCPFC12.

• New Zealand proposed that catch data on non-tuna species be subject to mandatory collection under Scientific Data provision Rules.
• Australia is calling for agreement on a workplan for developing the harvest strategy for key tuna species (CMM 2014-06).
• Cook Islands (again) is proposing changes to Eastern High Seas Pocket requirements including the prohibition of high seas transhipment in this area (CMM 2010-02).
• FFA members are proposing an extension of the Charter Notification Scheme for another three years (CMM 2012-05).
• FFA members and the EU have once-again called for 5% fin:carcass ratio requirement for sharks to be replaced with a requirement that is easier for enforcement and compliance monitoring (e.g. fins remain naturally attached) (CMM 2010-07).
• FFA members are calling for changes to the South Pacific Albacore measure to address difficulties reviewing the number of vessels ‘actively’ fishing for albacore south of 20⁰S to set a baseline for assessing compliance (given some longline vessels targeting other tuna species/swordfish/ sharks also catch albacore as by-catch) (CMM 2010-05).
• The US has called for specific requirements for leatherback turtles to be included in the CMM on sea turtles (CMM 2008-03). 

On proposed new CMMs, at the time of TCC11 only one new proposal had been tabled by PNA for establishing a WCPO skipjack target reference point, which is a revision on their 2014 proposal to WCPFC11.

No new proposals tabled by any members on major changes to the existing measure or a proposal for a new measure for skipjack, yellowfin and bigeye, despite this being one of the most contentious and highly-debated measures in recent years. 

However, TCC11 has recommended WCPFC12 address some ambiguities in the text (e.g. defining ’current’ levels) to better facilitate review of compliance with certain requirements.

Also, there are elements that are required to be addressed in 2015 by WCPFC12 including high seas purse seine effort limits, purse seine yellowfin catch limits and longline yellowfin measures.

Additional FAD measures for 2015 and the capacity management work plan may also be discussed. FFA members also met in late October for their annual Management Options Consultation where they usually prepare multiple proposals.

All this info was adapted from FFA's FTIN for the period Sept – Oct 2015 being Volume 8: Issue 5

New Tools for Traditional Fisheries

As blogged before, I took a job that is a far distance from my usual topics... Bringing new tools to a traditional fishery.  I like to branch out sometimes, and is good for my "interest" and it challenges me to "see" things with a new mindset.

Not the usual image of the Pacific

In Chile, benthic species, small pelagic and demersal fisheries, have historically been exploited by artisanal fishermen due to an initial open access to the fisheries and the opening of new global markets. Today, approx. 60,000 fishermen depend for their livelihoods and income on these declining resources. Despite the socioeconomic importance of the artisanal sector, its “development stage is precarious” due to organizational fragmentation and institutional weaknesses.

Understanding how small scale fisherman make ends needs with fishing is complicated, since the fresh fish trade involves transacting characteristics that are very difficult to be measured, without a specific ad hoc tool needed to understand the way fishing business works at small scale vessel level, furthermore the disparity of vessels characteristics at each location varies profoundly, hence making a generalist approach to the analysis of limited utility. Furthermore, the artisanal fishery organizational structures in Chile are highly complex and regionalised.

The understanding of the cost benefit reality for fisher operation, becomes even more relevant since the introduction of quotas, as the earnings of a fisher are based on a limited quantity of catch that has already a market value, hence knowing on trip by trip basis the earning and loss situation allows for catch planning. And if that wasn't enough, exclusivity fix price arrangements for catch do not reflect the cost of fishing due to the lack of a specific tool for that aim.

So mi first job was to adapt and update a spreadsheet we used in Samoa many years ago, to help the fisherman association to keep a much better tab on if they make money or the don't.

The spreadshhet is design to give a immediate appreciation of where they are in terms of cost benefit.

My next proposal is way more ambitious... from the findings it was clear that a tool that improves the transparency of the value chain, while providing traceability and information to fisher, buyers and authorities alike, could alleviate many of the shortcomings of the present scenario for many fisherman. 

In fisheries today, new ICTs are being used across the sector, from resource assessment, capture or culture to processing and commercialization. Some are specialist applications such as sonar for locating fish. Others are general purpose applications such as Global Positioning Systems (GPS) used for navigation and location finding, mobile phones for trading, information exchange and emergencies, radio programming with fishing communities and Web-based information and networking resources. 

However many of these especially dedicated tools are in a cost range that exceed the financial capabilities of the fishers, or have to be install and removed form the vessels. However, the new generation mobile phones are incredible tools that bring together in one various different “technologies”, they are at once a personal locator beacon, a GPS navigation device, and GPS equipped camera, besides being a 2-way communication device.

Based on work prior done in East Timor and Indonesia plus a existing tool being used in the Caribbean, I proposed the development of a app containing a “suite” of tools that could be used from a mobile phone that could ally itself the following focal FAO focal points:

1.  Fishing and trading activities: market and price information; advice and services; e-credit; e-government; post-harvest;
2. People and communities: vulnerability reduction; increasing safety; social inclusion; social mobilisation (empowering fishing communities in owning and communicating information); advocacy;
3. Resource management and conservation: monitoring, control and surveillance; co-management of fisheries resources.

So I proposed the conceptual design of a Android App (initially named “PescApp”). This app will open a “suite of services” that are at the disposition of the registered fishers including regulatory and traceability components as well as a market and trade services. 

The App concept is not new, the original was one in Trinidad and Tobago and it looks like the one illustrated here. I just expanded the concept to:

Registration
SOS
Navigation / Weather Information
Compliance
Alerts
Traceability
Market Information and Auction

However is important to point that  while all fisherman interviewed had a “intelligent” phone of some sort, and all of them reported having 3G signal up to 10 miles from shore (hence the technology and tools are well incorporated by the ultimate beneficiaries). The App are not expected to yield desired outcomes unless these are well articulated and drive the App design and implementation strategy.

A recent report in ITC in small scale fisheries topic, nails the complexity of this process: 

Rejuvenation of the small-scale fisheries sector with its complex interdependencies and rich ecosystem is not an easy, mechanical or even technical challenge. The integration of ICTs in the small-scale fisheries sector requires the development of various cognitive and skills-based capacities, as well as the formation, refinement and authentic ownership of new attitudes and behaviours. It calls for the human systems to be established to, in turn, articulate the various processes that in concert, aggregate to achieve bold, meaningful and consensual outcomes.

Technology cannot take the place of collaboration, engagement and negotiation, and can do little to take the place of time. Technology cannot provide a solution to the fundamental challenges, which limit participatory governance in fisheries anywhere in the world. It can only be as good as its human partners who must plan, design, implement and nurture the sector, its agents and its growth.

Fish Accountancy System - Preventing IUU Fish Laundering

I wrote about this in the past, but my friend and college Christopher Kevin from PNG's NFA that did the programming published recently a more detailed explanation on the system. So I share it here. 

The objective of the Fishing Accountancy System (FAS) is to prevent the mixing of or processing and Exporting/Selling of Fish that has been caught and landed legally from fish that has been Illegally caught and landed, as a necessary tool for PNG's system for EU Catch Certification

The FAS is controlled and maintained by the NFA's Catch Documentation Schemes (CDS) team, and it works this way:

When a Catcher or Carrier calls into PNG port to land, a Landing Authorization Code (LAC) or Unloading Authorization Code (UAC) is issued to the catcher/carrier.

• Scenario 1: A catcher is issued with LAC, which carries fish with only one lot #. Which means one LAC is linked to only one Lot # with different species (YF/SJ)
• Scenario 2: A carrier is issued with LAC, which may carry fish of different catchers – Which means one LAC will be linked to several Lot #s with different species (YF/SJ) and will be differentiated by the different Lot#s.
• The total landed (initial deposit) per species for catcher is linked to the Landing Authorization Code (LAC) or Unloading Authorization Code (UAC) and Lot # 

SCENARIO 1 - Wewak Port Example for a Catcher Landing Fish at ABC Seafoods Corporation:

• Catcher:  ABC 318. LAC: WWK150001. Lot #:  FS818WWKABCSC 
• Verified Landed Weight: Yellow Fin = 250 MT (Initial Deposit)
• Verified Landed Weight: Skip Jack = 400 MT (Initial Deposit)

SCENARIO 2 - Lae Port Example for a Carrier Landing Fish from 3 different Catchers at XYZ (PNG) Limited:

• Catcher 1:  XYZ 888. LAC: LAE150002. Lot #:  XYZ888XYZ
• Verified Landed Weight: Yellow Fin = 100 MT (Initial Deposit)
• Verified Landed Weight: Skip Jack = 250 MT (Initial Deposit)

• Catcher 2:  LMO 88. LAC: LAE150002. Lot #:  LMO888LXYZ
• Verified Landed Weight: Yellow Fin = 50 MT (Initial Deposit)
• Verified Landed Weight: Skip Jack = 350 MT (Initial Deposit)

• Catcher 3:  FGH 88. LAC: LAE150002. Lot #:  FGH88XYZ
• Verified Landed Weight: Yellow Fin = 100 MT (Initial Deposit)
• Verified Landed Weight: Skip Jack = 350 MT (Initial Deposit)

Work through - Fish Transaction and Balancing:

Every time an export is made, all the details are entered into the system by the CDS Officers/CDS Monitors/Export Officers.

For every new Export, the Catcher Name, LAC, Lot # and Species are entered into the system to check the Fish Balance remaining per specie and Lot # for this particular catcher. See fig 1 below:

Fig. 1- Fish Balancing/Transaction Screen

Using Scenario 1 – Fish Usage

• For instance, the company may decide to Export 100 MT of YF Tuna as Whole Round, now 150 MT of YF remaining
• After sometime the company decides to Export another 100 MT of YF as Whole Round, now 50 MT of YF remaining
• At a later date, the company decides to process the remaining 50 MT of YF with total recovery of say 42% = 21 MT of YF for Export or Local Sales

From the above fish usage:

If the Catcher with said LAC, Lot # and Specie is NOT ALREADY registered in the system, No Fish Balancing Records/Details will be displayed on the screen and an Error Alert Message Box will be displayed notifying the user that there are no records available for this search criteria. The user will now enter the new details into the system and export approval is given. See Figure 2 below:

Fig. 2 Fish transaction details Per Lot# and Species.

For the above example, the system will now display on the screen as seen below

• If the Catcher with said LAC, Lot # and Specie is ALREADY registered in the system, Fish Balancing Records/Details will be displayed on the screen and an Alert Message Box will be displayed notifying the user of the quantity of fish remaining for this search criteria.

Fig. 3: Fish transaction details Per Lot No and Species – Error message indicating that there is no record available as per the search criteria

Fig. 4:  Report to display the fish transaction details Per Lot # and Species

Fig. 5:  Report to display the Total Quantity Processed (Loins and Canned) or sold Whole Round Tuna Per Lot# and Species

Fig. 6:  Report to display the Total Quantity Sold Locally or Sold Locally as Whole Round Tuna Per Lot No and Species

Obviously the reporting can be customised to reflect any (or many) of the parameters in the relational database, and the design of the system is flexible as to be adapted to other fishery operations.

While is quite frustrating to explain screens on a text, all is possible with good will and patience, and from what I know NFA and Christopher (who is a great guy) are happy to share their systems and knowledge.

There is too much fish!

That is definitively not the type of statement that you read often in fisheries... but that depends from where you look at it. I have known Phil Roberts (from Trimarine) for a long time, he knows the tuna world from the inside out, and I always like to listen to what he has to say. 

He always has the right information to complement his words. The graph above is explanatory on itself the world is catching to much fish and that oversupply is driving the price down, so what is the point?

No one wins... that is what my 13 years old boy said when I explained the graph... Is so evident that I just don't understand how we got here. 

From 2000 – 2014 catch increased by 75% in the WCPFC. That leads that to oversupply and depressed market prices, there has been a 39% drop in value from 2013 to 2015.

Oversupply is bad for boat owners. Oversupply = low prices = unprofitable boats.

Low prices are bad for island based processors are only low prices are good for brands and dutiable processors.

SPC indicates that 220 seiners could fish to 50% target reference point.  The WCP fleet may need a 25 to 50% reduction and make more room for locally flagged vessels. 

The sad case of Big Eye Tuna in the Pacific

Every year at this time is Technical and Compliance Committee (TCC) meeting in the western and central Pacific Ocean in Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia. And a lot of fisheries technical informations is prepared and presented. Is one of those places where the scientists present their data and the politics ignore it...

As the guys from ISSF said: While some members have made great progress through stakeholder collaboration throughout the intersessional period, given the ongoing and pending issues again on the agenda, one wonders if we are attending TCC 10 or TCC 11? There is certainly a sense of déjà vu as we prepare for this meeting.

Reading fisheries papers is not for the non initiated... and the dynamics and problems of Big Eye tuna are not one dimensional. However, in my eyes the graph below from this paper just tells all the story:

Each colour is a different part of the pacific where the data comes from, the trend is clear even if you are not a fisheries biologist.

Management failure at its best

Back to South America and to Small Scale Fisheries

Every year around September - October I do a few weeks of work in Latin America. Working here is a bit of sabbatical: completely different language, fisheries, realities, problems, etc… It put my head back to the other reality of fisheries; where catching fish is part of everyday subsistence and not only a job that brings money.

Small scale long line fisherman in Chiloe Island.

Over the next week I will be working again for the Swiss Government SIPPO Programme in Peru, selecting small fishing operations for their direct contact with world buyers cutting off the middleman.

Then I’m off to Southern Chile, working for WWF Smart Fishing Initiative, supporting the development of low cost technologies that facilitate catch volumes evaluation, traceability, transport logistics and fisherman safety in the small scale hake fishery around Puerto Montt.

I always believed that Information and Communications Technology  (ICT) can greatly benefit both fisheries administrations and fishing communities alike, I have utilized information and communications equipment in a wide range of initiatives. And more and more I believe that new generation mobile phones are incredible tools that bring together in one various different “technologies”. They are at once a Personal locator beacon, a GPS navigation device, and GPS equipped camera… besides being a Communication device! And in fisheries we have use for all of them! 

Those “tools” can be easily and cheaply interfaces with google maps platforms and we then appeal to willingness of the social responsibility and sustainability sections of mobile companies to support it, so many positive advances in small scale fisheries can be acheived via win-win scenarios… the only things you need are a phone, a waterproof cover, some call credit and thinking out of the box… (I like that last bit a lot!)

Hence, I see this a good challenge and a opportunity to refresh my head and then go back to tuna, IUU and Catch documentation at the end of November.

I keep updates coming.

Tuna in the WCPFC, Stock Status and Challenges

A couple of weeks ago, when I was in the Pacific Tuna Forum in Fiji, I posted about the presentations I was keen to hear and see.  Today I present Shelton Harley's one, he is the Principal Fisheries Scientist (Stock Assessment and Modelling) of SPC's Oceanic Fisheries Programme. Shelton is a very clever man at the top of its game, and equally important, a good communicator of the science and status of the stocks.

I will attempt to pass some of his message, that was quite strong and cautionary, most of the images and graphs are self explanatory.

2014 was the largest in tuna fishery catches in history 1.96 Million Tonnes of skipjack. To make sense of this number, see above: If we were to put all the skipjack caught nose to tail, the line would extend almost half a million km... enough to go around 100000 km beyond the dark side of the moon.... that image blew my little brain off into pieces.

Every year more and more Skipjack get  added to the statistics while the rest has been quite stable... but for how much more?

The Pacific catches are way more than all other oceans combined... just some Kiribati and PNG and you have more than the whole Indian ocean. This numbers are staggering.

The usual graphs that are shown, have green (is all good), orange (we need to take measures) and red (overfishing)... this time he believes that that green gives a fake sense of security... hence he circumscribed the statatus of the healtiest stocks to a smaller oval of where the fishery operates at good biological and economical returns. under that view, even skipjack looks borderline. 

Hence, the overall picture is not very good for the other pelagics

Purse Seine fishing is increasing it efficiency , and there is an increase in the number of sets. Skipjack biomass is going down and catch rates are going up.  

Sonar FADs (Fish Aggregation Devices) are the biggest game changer, in the past the vessel  had to go to their FADs and then see if there was fish around it; with this technology fleet managers from the desk somewhere can direct the vessels to the FADs that are showing signal. Also helicopters are back in the fleet as there is lot of replacement vessels.  New purse seiners are more powerful and more efficient. (And many are subsidised as i suggested before) 

Of course this impact Yellowfin, as is to be seen in the 3 maps or relative abundance above. Juvenile Yellowfin associates to Skipjack and is caught with it, as purseine is not really a discriminatory fishing method.

Hence the take home message is sobering, we have long reached or exceeded long term sustainable catch levels. The harvesting at such level is also felt in nations that do not catch Skipjack, as there are ecosystems implications that are not well studied yet.

The solutions to these issues are not new:

Unfortunately, the precautionary words that he has, seems to fall in the deaf hears of most DWFN and some Pacific Islands decision makers. But good on him for bringing these issues up in public forums.

I always maintained that the region is very lucky to have organisations like SPC, that can attract and maintain scientists of Shelton's caliber. Their analytical capacity and the level of the mathematical modelling that guys like him do is quite amazing. Total respect to him.

20th anniversary of FAO's Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries,

Is the 20th anniversary of the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, a unique document that is not always valued as it should.  FAO media unit interviewed some worldwide key stakeholders on their views about the importance of the Code of Conduct and what they see as the main challenges to overcome to fully attain the objectives of the Code of Conduct over the next 20 years.

By some reason they also asked me... This is how I sound in my mother language. 

During the FAO Expert Consultation I was invited in Rome in July, FAO asked my view on the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries and the challenges it faces.

Basically I say that for me, the code is reference point that we all should mantain as yardstick in whatever area of fisheries we work. We need to have a "masterplan set of guidelines" and that is what the code ought to be.

I also say that the key challenge that has faced and continues facing is exactly that! We need to keep inthe forefront of whatever we as the "meta language" we use, and is not always done.

What the code "is" and "do" is explained in the video below by my ex colleagues and friends from FAO.

What is the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries? Is a introductory document to the code has been translated to most languages of the world, and I'm happy to see that includes many of the Pacific Islands ones, click on the links for versions in Cook Islands Maori, Fijian, Taetae ni Kiribati, PNG Tok Pisin, Solomons Pijin, Samoan, Tongan, Tuvaluan, and Vanutu Bislama.

A Fish Called Development

Recently came across this very good article about fisheries subsidies (a topic that normally hits me in the guts) by some heavy weights in terms of international trade Pascal Lamy (ex DG of WTO), Oby Ezekwesili (cofounder of Transparency International) and José María Figueres (ex President of Costa Rica).

Based on 2006 figures

This also ties up with the figure above, that notes that the global cost of fisheries subsidies is greater than the cost of IUU fishing.

The article presents good figures and arguments, hence is worth reading:

The just-adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are expected to herald the start of a new era in global development, one that promises to transform the world in the name of people, the planet, prosperity, peace, and partnership. But there is an ocean of difference between promising and doing. And, while global declarations are important – they prioritize financing and channel political will – many of today’s pledges have been made before.

In fact, whether the SDGs succeed will depend to a significant degree on how they influence other international negotiations, particularly the most complex and contentious ones. And an early test concerns a goal for which the Global Ocean Commission actively campaigned: to “conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas, and marine resources for sustainable development.”

When political leaders meet at the tenth WTO Ministerial Conference in Nairobi in December, they will have an opportunity to move toward meeting one of that goal’s most important targets: prohibition of subsidies that contribute to overfishing and illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing by no later than 2020.

This is not a new ambition; it has been on the WTO’s agenda for many years, and it has been included in other international sustainable development declarations. But, even today, countries spend $30 billion a year on fisheries subsidies, 60% of which directly encourages unsustainable, destructive, or even illegal practices. The resulting market distortion is a major factor behind the chronic mismanagement of the world’s fisheries, which the World Bank calculates to have cost the global economy $83 billion in 2012.

In addition to concerns about finances and sustainability, the issue raises urgent questions about equity and justice. Rich economies (in particular Japan, the United States, France, and Spain), along with China and South Korea, account for 70% of global fisheries subsidies. These transfers leave thousands of fishing-dependent communities struggling to compete with subsidized rivals and threaten the food security of millions of people as industrial fleets from distant lands deplete their oceanic stocks.

Global Ocean Commission data (not sure about the accuracy of the data, in no way I believe that China and PNG are in the same bracket)

On the high seas, the distortion is even larger. According to fisheries economists, subsidies by some of the world’s richest countries are the only reason large-scale industrial fishing in areas beyond coastal countries’ 200-mile exclusive economic zones is profitable. But fish do not respect international boundaries, and it is estimated that 42% of the commercial fish being caught travel between countries’ exclusive zones and the high seas. As a result, industrial fishing far from shore undermines developing countries’ coastal, mostly artisanal, fisheries.

Eliminating harmful fisheries subsidies by 2020 is not only crucial for conserving the ocean; it will also affect our ability to meet other goals, such as our promises to end hunger and achieve food security and to reduce inequality within and among countries.

The credibility of both the WTO and the newly adopted SDGs will be on the line in Nairobi. The Global Ocean Commission has put forward a clear three-step program to eliminate harmful fishing subsidies. All that is needed is for governments finally to agree to put an end to the injustice and waste that they cause.

Fortunately, there are encouraging signs. Nearly 60% of the WTO’s membership supports controlling fisheries subsidies, with support from the African, Caribbean, and Pacific Group of developing countries – together with the EU’s contribution to improve transparency and reporting – giving new momentum to the effort.

Among the initiatives being put forward in advance of the Nairobi meeting is the so-called “NZ +5 proposal.” Co-sponsored by New Zealand, Argentina, Iceland, Norway, Peru, and Uruguay, the plan would eliminate fisheries subsidies that affect overfished stocks and contribute to illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing.

The Global Ocean Commission urges the remaining 40% of the WTO’s members – and especially the biggest players currently blocking this process – to accept the relatively modest proposals on the table. A sustainable future for our planet and its oceans depend on it.

The original is here

Is it illegal fishing, unregulated fishing or crime?

I have never meet Mercedes Rosello, other than by tweeter (sign of the times) but she knows her stuff very well!, and has been very kind to my work/blog in more than one occasion. As far as I know she she is a PhD researcher and runs House of the Ocean (a not-for-profit consultancy) and a blog (the IUU fishing blog). Her more recent piece is very informative in terms of the legal perspectives of the "concept of IUU fishing". She kindly allowed to "re blog" (is that a real word?) her content. I recommend you read her piece, as I just pick up some quotes from her blog.

some of 100 scenarios....

The first global instrument to introduce the expression IUU fishing was the 2001 International Plan of Action to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing (IPOA), a non-binding international tool. 

Known as a toolbox for States to guide them in the fight against undesirable fishing practices, the IPOA is extensively referenced as the source of the definition of IUU fishing, contained in its paragraph 3. This definition has now been integrated in treaty law, the legal regimes of several States, and European Union legislation. Yet, despite its popularity, the term is controversial due to its lack of legal clarity.

Rather than understanding the term IUU fishing as a single tool with which to assess conduct, it is useful to think of it as three distinct but overlapping categories. Each category presents a different perspective on undesirable fishing activities. Except for the first one, which is all-encompassing in its descriptive simplicity, the categories are not comprehensive. Further, they do not comprise a set of standards on which to judge the illegality of a fishing operation, or the conduct of a State in respect of its international obligations. In this respect, the 1995 Fish Stocks Agreement is better equipped to deal with such tasks.

First and second categories: illegal and unreported fishing

The first category, that of illegal fishing, is set out in paragraph 3.1 of the IPOA. It is a straightforward description of what makes a fishery conduct a wrong in law at the domestic and international levels.

Firstly, domestically: when the conduct of a vessel (a more accurate reference would be to the person or persons responsible for its operation) contravenes applicable domestic law, it is illegal. Secondly, internationally: certain conducts by vessels may demonstrate a shortfall by the State responsible for their control in the observance of its international legal obligations.  When this occurs, there may be an international wrong.

Ultimately, however, whether any illegality has indeed occurred will need to be determined by a relevant authority. Domestically, this may be an administrative authority or a court of law. Internationally, a tribunal with jurisdiction.

A second category, that of unreported fishing, is set out in paragraph 3.2 of the IPOA. Domestically, it refers to vessel conducts that contravene the specific laws that regulate the reporting of fishing activity or catch. Internationally, paragraph 3.2 goes on to refer to activities that contravene the rules of regional fishery management organisations (RFMOs) in areas of the high seas where they have regulatory competence. The reference to a contravention implies that the subject (a State) must have agreed to abide by those rules. If such State permits a vessel in its register to operate in a manner that is inconsistent with those rules, the State may be committing an international wrong. Hence, domestically as well as internationally, unreported fishing is a sub-category of illegal fishing. Curiously, other than RFMO rules no reference is made in the IPOA to the contravention of international laws that oblige States to report on fishery data. Given this incompleteness, unreported fishing has little value as a legal category beyond national and regional management contexts.

These categories describe what illegality looks like, but they do not act as legal yardsticks. Domestically, the illegality of a fishing activity can only be determined by way of assessment of the conduct of an operator against the applicable municipal laws by a competent authority. These laws may vary from country to country. However, before the birth of the IPOA, the 1995 Fish Stocks Agreement (FSA) had already typified a number of fisheries activities that it referred to as serious violations. State parties to the FSA are required to address those violations in their respective domestic legal regimes. The non-exhaustive list in FSA Article 21.11 includes conducts such as fishing without authorisation, failing to report catch, using destructive fishing gear, or obstructing an investigation by concealing evidence, to name a few. Hence, in FSA State parties at least, those will be the conducts that will be restricted or outlawed – they will be the illegal fishing conducts to which the IPOA refers or, at least, some of them.  

However, the regulatory influence of the FSA does not extend to non-parties, or to the conservation and management of stock that is neither straddling nor highly migratory. Where non-transboundary stock is located in the EEZ of a coastal State, it is left to the discretion of that State to determine what fishing activities should be restricted or outlawed. It will need to do this within the general parameters of international law, the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and other treaties to which it is bound, including bilateral agreements.

Whether illegal fishing conducts may also be typified as criminal will depend on the discretion of each State. The FSA does not oblige State parties to criminalise any fishery behaviours, only to address certain conducts as serious violations. Most countries choose to do this by way of non-criminal public law and administrative measures. Currently, illegal fishing is not considered a transnational crime in accordance with the UN Convention on Transnational Organized Crime, and therefore States are not obliged to treat it as such. Further, the IPOA discourages this, considering the rigours of criminal law in terms of proof and process too onerous.

It is, however, noteworthy that some States have chosen to criminalise some specific conducts associated to illegal fishing practices. In other cases, strategy documents have referred to illegal fishing as a crime, but the relevant legislators have failed to adopt the necessary laws to ensure criminalisation in their domestic regimes.

Finally, a domestic instance of illegal fishing – whether criminal or not – will be of little significance internationally unless an international legal standard of conduct has also been contravened by a State with responsibility. At the time of writing, such legal standards are principally found in general international law, UNCLOS, the 1995 Compliance Agreement and, in respect of straddling and highly migratory stock, the FSA. Whilst several paragraphs of the IPOA have substantially defined some of those rules, its voluntary nature makes it unsuitable as a yardstick against which the conduct of a State can be assessed in order to determine its possible illegality.

Not just inspecting...

Third category: unregulated fishing

The third category, unregulated fishing, is set out in paragraph 3.3 of the IPOA. It has two distinct prongs:

The first one refers to activities carried out inside areas and for stocks under the regulatory competence of RFMOs, in a manner that is inconsistent with their conservation rules. Such activities must be carried out by vessels without nationality, or by vessels flying the flag of a State that has not agreed to be bound by the rules that RFMO (for States who have agreed to this, the activity contravening the rules would be categorised as illegal fishing, as explained above). In effect, this label is slightly misleading, because the sea areas and stocks to which it refers are regulated by RFMOs, notwithstanding the States or vessels’ choice to disregard such regulation.

The second prong refers to activities carried out in a manner inconsistent with the flag State’s international obligations in respect of high seas areas or stocks not affected by RFMO conservation or management rules. Hence, the label unregulated fishing here refers to the absence of RFMO rules.

Although superficial reading of paragraph 3 of the IPOA may suggest that unregulated fishing is an entirely separate category from illegal fishing and is therefore legal, this is not the case. As paragraph 3.4 of the IPOA subsequently clarifies, unregulated fishing will also be illegal if it is inconsistent with the flag State’s international obligations. Beyond obligations acquired in the institutional context of RFMOs, States also have conservation and cooperation obligations derived from general international law and applicable treaty law.

However, the protection offered to those ocean areas and stocks by international law is generally considered thin and unclear in practical terms, making assessments of legality particularly difficult. This is specially so in cases where States have not agreed to important treaties such as the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea or the 1993 Compliance Agreement, or where no other binding rules (such as those that may be established in a bilateral agreement) exist.

Hence, unregulated fishing is a wide spectrum category comprising high seas activities that are always pernicious insofar as they undermine conservation and cooperation efforts, but whose illegality may be uncertain in accordance with the current international framework. The value of this category lies not in its ability to facilitate an assessment of what may constitute legal or illegal conduct, but in its usefulness to ascribe a negative value to certain fishing activities irrespective of their illegality. This can be practical for a State or group of States who have adopted certain conservation rules, and have to deal with other States who have not done so.

The conserving States may be reluctant to commence international proceedings against the non-conserving States for many reasons, ranging from the political undesirability of engagement in a high profile dispute, to cost, to lack of confidence in the international legal framework, to name a few. In this context, such States may opt for the deployment of trade measures against non-conserving States. Amongst the advantages of this process are the presence of incentives, as well as the avoidance of the rigours associated to international legal process.

Subject to a number of procedural conditions, if the products from the non-conserving States have been captured in a manner that is detrimental to conservation and are excluded by the conserving States on the basis of a non-discriminatory process, they may be considered compliant with the rules of the World Trade Organisation and be, therefore, viewed as legitimate. 

Conclusion

The ‘hold all’ composite term IUU Fishing is instrumental in ascribing a negative value to a wide range of fishing and fishery support activities whose illegality is uncertain in order to enhance the accountability of operators and States through trade measures. Beyond this, paragraph 3 of the IPOA does not constitute a proper standard against which the conduct of an operator or a State can be legally assessed by a relevant administrative or judicial authority. Its voluntary nature makes it unsuitable for this task in any event. Appropriately therefore, the IPOA does not list actual behaviours by private actors that States can then domestically class as illegal.

By contrast, the FSA does contain such list in respect of fishery activities targeting straddling and highly migratory species. The list in its Article 21.11 should be replicated, expanded and changed where necessary to be made applicable to non-transboundary stocks across domestic regimes, and in the context of bilateral fishery agreements. This, plus the treaty’s integral management of RFMO conservation consent by State parties makes its adoption and implementation essential in the management of illegal fishing and the delimitation of unregulated fishing to cases where there is no RFMO regulation.

The FSA is, therefore, an essential tool in the regulation of fisheries and the eradication of illegal practices, and States should work hard to foster its generalised adoption alongside the adoption of national plans of action and the Port State Measures Agreement.

PNG earns its way off the EU yellow card (and finally Taiwan gets one!)

In a move that was expected (and truly deserved) the EU lifted the "yellow card" it had on Papua New Guinea since June 2014. 

IUU fishing is actually mostly about people, cultures and greed... fish is just what they do. (the body languages in this scene tells a lot)

The EU's press release that announced it recognises that PNG has "amended their legal frameworks to combat IUU fishing, strengthened their sanctioning systems, improved monitoring and control of the fleets".

The good news touches me at personal level, if you follow this blog you must have noted that I have written about working there (here, here, here and here). Over the last 18 months I have worked many times in the country supporting their strengthening actions, and I have been a front row witness of the personal and systemic transformation of the National Fisheries Authority (NFA) staff in charge of the Catch Certification Scheme and its associated Fish Legality and Accountancy controls. I know is very rewarding to them (and me) to feel that they have helped pushing their country off a sticky situation (they are VERY proud people).

Professionally for me is a great satisfaction, there is no template on "how" the system should work... The EU in this area wants outcomes and does not rule how you get there. So is up to countries to come up with systems that provide those results.. the few model available are all in developed countries with vastly different realities than PNG. In PNG we say that if something works here, then there is no excuses not to work anywhere else... (listen to that Philippines, Korea, China and Taiwan!) 

So I'm very thankful to NFA, their management and staff, as well to my contractors FFA/DevFish II, for having trusted my vision and the unorthodox development of my systems. We delivered the results expected by the EU, but from a more efficient exporting country perspective and not from a market imposition. 

Over the years I made "tru" friends in PNG, which is in many ways a 2nd home for me in the Pacific. I'm immensely proud of the people have I worked with, because it has been 100% their own merit, drive and pride that got the yellow card lifted.  Good'n'ya wantoks! 

Furthermore, I'm happy to see the EU tackling the bigger guys too! I knew that Taiwan was in the pipeline since April, but is good to see it happening! 

I have yet to see (in over 15 years doing this work in the pacific) a Taiwanese flagged or owned (even if flagged in Vanuatu) longliner that is in full compliance and that reports their logsheets in time (perhaps they are... I have just not seen them). So hopefully they do some deep work like the one done in PNG!

Taiwanese longlining logsheets... works of art...