Pacific Island fisheries under threat from over-fishing

The Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee annual meeting, Te Papa, Wellington

Many of us have had the chance to meet this week at the officials’ meeting and at a dinner on Tuesday, and I welcome you back. And I know delegates share with me in acknowledging the passing of the Samoan Head-of-State, Malietoa Tanumafili, and share with me in extending our condolences to our colleagues from Samoa.

Indeed, when Malietoa passed away, I heard a member of our New Zealand Samoan community remark that we seem to have lost a generation of Pacific leaders in recent years, including in Samoa, in Tonga and here in New Zealand, where we lost our own Maori Queen.

In each community, as we farewell our elders, we turn to the challenges of the future. And, fired by the teaching we have received and by our own judgement, we need to work out how we will prepare for tomorrow.

Three years ago we mapped a path to the future when the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission came into being, and with the call from Forum leaders for increased attention to fisheries.

We have inherited a tuna fishery. It's the healthiest and most abundant in the world. It is a fantastic resource that swims between our islands, and it brings us together this week. It represents a tremendous opportunity in terms of its potential to bring sustainable economic, social and cultural benefits to our countries and peoples.

But just as we inherited the resource, we also have a responsibility to ensure our children and grandchildren will inherit it one day. We have a responsibility to ensure we use this gift to provide for today and tomorrow.

Our tuna resource is at risk.

The highly migratory fish stocks of the western and central Pacific are at a critical juncture. Two important species – bigeye and yellowfin tuna – are being fished unsustainably. That is, if they continue to be fished in the same way as we are doing now, we will destroy the fish stock.

No one will thank us if we allow that to happen. There is no long-term economic advantage to be gained from destroying the resource on which our fishing industry is based.
There hasn't been large-scale industrial fishing in the western Pacific for very long, compared to elsewhere. But there is no comfort to be gained from looking at the experiences in other oceans. The majority of high-value tuna and tuna-like fish stocks in other oceans of the world are now seriously depleted or fast heading that way.

That's left boats, crews and industry capital looking for something else to do, so it's no surprise the surplus fishing capacity is being transferred to the Pacific. Annual catches of tuna and other highly migratory species in western and central Pacific waters are rising year after year.

Much of the catch is occurring in our own waters. There is a 'race to fish' under way, in anticipation of decisions about allocation within the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission.

Pacific countries, as well as those far away, are looking to increase their share of resources. So we have some hard issues ahead. And as we turn to them I want to acknowledge the pivotal role of the Forum Fisheries Agency in protecting the rights and interests of Pacific Island countries with respect to their tuna fisheries.

You will all be familiar with our key achievements – the Multilateral Treaty on Fisheries with the United States; the regional register of foreign fishing vessels; the regional vessel monitoring and regional observer programme; as well as the agreed Minimum Terms and Conditions for access by foreign vessels to your exclusive economic zones.

And perhaps the greatest achievement of all has been the successful participation of Pacific countries in the multilateral high-level conference to negotiate the Western and Central Pacific Convention. Together with the subsequent negotiations of the preparatory conference and within the Commission itself, negotiations have spanned over a decade.

Throughout, the FFA has ensured that the interests of Pacific countries have been to the forefront. So congratulations to Dan and his team, along with the previous Director-General Feleti Teo (who I understand is also here this week as part of the Tuvalu delegation.)

Building from here will require action on a number of fronts, if we are going to be successful in managing our migratory species: We need the science to tell us how well our fish stocks are doing; we need strong monitoring and surveillance tools, or anything we say here is just words; and - toughest of all - we need to work out a fair way to share the resource.

Let's start with our knowledge base. We have a relatively good scientific understanding about the status of the fish stocks in the western and central Pacific. FFA members have collected data about fishing in their own zones and we have the work of the oceanic fisheries programme at the secretariat for the Pacific community.
We know how many fish are there and we know roughly the levels of fishing that are going to be sustainable over time.

In other words we know how many fish we can take. And we must not go past that point. The forum fisheries association has strong monitoring, control and surveillance tools for our region. They include the satellite vessel monitoring system, vessel register and observer programme. These tools are being supplemented and built upon by the Commission.

Without strong monitoring, control and surveillance, any efforts to conserve and sustain stocks risk being undermined. We can find out how many fish we can take, we can work out who can take them - but if we don't have controls in place, those rules will be ignored. Then it wouldn't matter what we decide about how best to manage our resource and take advantage of it, because there won't be any resource left.

But that brings me to the toughest challenge of all. All members have a stake in the migratory species of our region. (So do most of the world’s fishing nations.)
We have international obligations to manage the resource well, and if we don't co-operate we won't be able to.

Decisions about allocation are never easy. Let me give you one example from our own experience here in New Zealand. A few years ago, at the dawn of the 1990s, the government reached a settlement with Maori negotiators to hand over a share of New Zealand's fisheries resource.

It took many years of negotiation and litigation to reach the point of settlement. And even once an agreement was made, the hard work was only just beginning, as within Maori there were almost impossibly difficult decisions to be made about allocation and distribution.

So if it is tough for us in one country, it's obviously tough when we try to work on it across an entire region. But there are jobs at stake, businesses at stake, there are development opportunities, and the well-being of communities and families at stake. There is the future of the resource, and economic self-sufficiency into the future at stake.

So what is the choice but to work together? The alternative is collapse, mismanagement and betrayal of the duties we owe our peoples and our children. As Forum Fisheries Ministers, and as the governing body of the Forum Fisheries Agency, we are leaders.

As leaders, we have a profoundly important job to do. It's the job of leaders to sit down at the table when issues get tough; to look for a way to find common ground and make trade-offs; and to set direction.

The outcomes of our meeting today will be reported to Forum Leaders at their annual meeting in October. I will personally be pushing to ensure that fisheries gets the attention it deserves at that meeting.

The long-term future of the Pacific fishery is in our hands. It can be for our good and for our long-term benefit, or it can be squandered. Generations of Pacific peoples are dependent on us not to squander it.

Members of the forum have long worked with solidarity and co-operation, and the need for our collaborative approach has never been greater.
There are many challenges. I acknowledge that. But you know the saying: when the going gets tough, the tough get going. We will solve these issues by working together with goodwill and a spirit of co-operation.

We started today with a welcome onto Te Papa's marae. The meeting room of a marae is a very traditional venue for both tough talking and for recognising the benefits overall of collaborating. I urge you to bring that spirit into this venue - we have much work to do and it is the time for us to get started.