According to Greenpeace, the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu have all come together in a new agreement to ban all foreign fishing vessels from two zones in an effort to combat overfishing. In the agreement it is mention that these countries will ban ‘foreign fishing vessels licensed to fish in their waters from fishing in two regions of the Pacific Commons adjacent to them’.
After that the agreement also ‘requires foreign fishing vessels to retain their full catches’. Under this the authority could manage to cut the time fishing boats spend at sea and the amount of tuna they catch. At present they throw away non-tuna species to make room in their holds for the more valuable catch. Thirdly, it will also ‘be compulsory to carry fisheries observers on board at all times’.
In the agreement these countries agree to ban fish aggregation devices (used to attract juvenile bigeye and yellowfin tuna) in their waters for three months of the year. This conservation measure will discourage harvesting of these highly migratory species. According to a source the two fishing-free zones will be firstly, between Papua New Guinea and Palau and the second ‘bounded by PNG, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, the Solomon Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia’.
It is said that the Pacific ‘holds the last relatively robust populations of tuna and provides half the tuna consumed globally’ but ‘the fish are under threat from Asian fishing fleets which have exhausted their own waters. Now the question arise how these new rules will be implemented especially by countries who largely depend on aid, especially from neighbours Australia and New Zealand.
