Boys fish from a small boat in a Pacific atoll lagoon. Rampant industrial fishing threatens the future of Pacific fisheries and will mean an uncertain future for these children in an economy that relies on local traditional fishing for survival.
While sailing the Western and Central Pacific, documenting
fishing, and speaking with industry leaders, local fishermen,
academics and government regulators we've realised that this is a
fishery on the edge of crisis.
Suva, Fiji
Our journey of discovery began with our first stop, Suva, Fiji.
There we met Grahame Southwick, owner of Fiji Fish, and one of the
many industry leaders sounding the alarm: "We have a biological
problem, there are too many boats taking too many fish. It also
spawns an economical problem where we have legitimate fleets being
forced out of business by the pirate fleets or the
non-conformists."
Recently, the Prime Minister of Fiji himself, Laisenia Qarase,
reportedly called for measures to ensure that tuna fishing in
international waters is harvested on a sustainable basis. He also
called for more of the profits from fishing in the region to go to
the local economy: "More than 95 percent of its cash value goes to
other countries. The return to the Pacific nations is under 4
percent of its worth. Clearly, we must do something about
this."
Tarawa, Kiribati
On our way to Kiribati we came across a long liner, our first
fishing vessel at sea, pulling in its line. The crew was friendly,
but we saw first hand an incident of shark
fining. Shark fins are worth a lot of money, but shark meat is
not a big seller - so they kept the fins and threw the dead shark
overboard. What a waste. Government and industry experts advocate
using fishing line that breaks off when a big shark bites the line
- letting the shark live. But most fishermen don't like the idea of
losing a hook and many don't like the idea of losing that shark fin
revenue (some crew on fishing boats are even paid in shark
fin).
In Kiribati, the dilemma facing small island nations that want
to protect their fish stocks, but are cash strapped, was
highlighted by Johnny
Kirata, Deputy Director of the Fisheries Resources Department:
"As you can see, the resource itself is an important one, yet we
also have a government that needs hard cash. There must be a
balance in trying to manage and conserve the resource, and at the
same time reap the maximum benefit from it."
We also spoke to Ekueta Leremia, a successful local fisherman.
He runs seven small fishing boats working with more than 20 staff.
As with the other local fishermen we spoke to, he is worried about
how over fishing is hurting his livelihood: "Until 1980 it was a
very good time for fishing, plenty fish around. You didn't need to
go very far out, just stay close to land and you could catch big
Yellow Fin. Now it's very difficult, very difficult to get those
big ones."
Mojuro, Marshalls
At a public
meeting in the Marshalls, the Deputy Attorney General Posesi
Blommfield talked about the challenges enforcing fisheries
regulations with a 1,321,220 square mile (2,131,000 sq km) area to
patrol with one patrol boat.
"As you are all aware, it's one thing to have laws in place to
combat IUU (illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing), it's
quite another to prosecute them. The crime of IUU is quite
different to other crimes, because it is hard to go out there and
catch the violators, it is hard to bring them in, it is hard to
identify who the owners are, and it is very hard to bring evidence
in and present it to a judge and hope that he will convict."
We also visited Kolej, a local fisherman who has been around long
enough to remember the good old days. He put the blame for
declining catches on foreign fishing vessels. What he said was both
hopeful and sobering.
"I think the possible solution now is for the governments of the
countries in the Pacific Islands to work together to be firm in
protecting their resources. If no action is taken, the livelihood
that we depend on will one day be depleted and the future
generations may never see it real life."
Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia
In Pohnpei we saw more fishing boats - purse seiners and long
liners - then at any other stops. The long liners unloaded into a
processing facility right down the dock from us. The purse
seiners transfer their fish onto reefer (refrigerator) ships
out in the lagoon.
I had tea with some Chinese fishermen on board their long liner.
Like many fishermen, they endure cramped living conditions, long
hours and years away from home at a time - for relatively little in
the way of pay. A purse seiner captain was also kind enough to
allow us to come on board, and document their transhipping
(transferring) fish to a refer (refrigerator) ship. Transhipping in
a harbour like this is acceptable because the authorities can
monitor it, but Greenpeace opposes transhipping at sea because it
makes it too easy to evade the regulators.
One industry leader on this stop, Milan Kamber, Managing Director
of Caroline Fisheries Corporation and a long time purse seiner
captain, told us: "Our ships used to come in with 3-4000 tons (per
year), now they're barely coming in with 2000 tons. They used to
stay (at sea) a month, or under a month, but now (it takes) up to
50 days, close to two months to finish the voyage."
Sea searching
Our own experiences at sea have confirmed these concerns. We
have encountered large numbers of purse seiners on the high seas
fishing for tuna without any regulation or controls - taking
advantage of weaknesses in the law of the sea to fish for tuna as
they migrate between the exclusive economic zones of the Pacific
Island States.
Nine times in the past week we have set off in our small boats
to film purse seiners and long liners hauling their gear and speak
with their captains and crews. Two long liners caught only four
fish between them in four hours from their 75km long lines. Five
out of six purse seiners hauled in dismally
small catches, and the sixth wasn't much better. Skippers on
two other purse seiners we visited complained of small catches and
few fish. Helicopter pilots tell us that these experiences are
being echoed all around us.
And it's not just the tuna that are threatened by over-fishing.
Our divers continually wonder why there are no sharks in the water
with them as they film the purse seine nets being drawn, despite
the clouds of blood and thrashing fish. View the slideshow
of purse seiners hauling their nets.
The reality is that the pacific tuna fishery is not in a healthy
robust state. It is, in fact, over-fished and heading steadily
towards the fate suffered by some many fisheries in the Atlantic
and elsewhere. Catches are dropping, fish are harder to find, and
more boats keep coming.
What happens next
However, the picture is not all bleak. The alarm is being raised
by a wide variety of stakeholders - from the artisan fishermen, to
industry leaders, to government officials - there is a strong
consensus that time is rapidly running out for the fisheries.
Will this alarm translate into urgent action? Or will greed,
corruption, poor governance and pressure from the far off nations
exploiting these resources bring about another marine, ecological
and economic disaster? I don't know, but in the people of the
Pacific that I have met on this tour, I have found reason to
hope.
This article was written by
Andrew Davies our webeditor currently onboard the Rainbow
Warrior. To find out more about the tour visit its weblog.
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