At the recent committee meeting of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) it was decided to take stern measures against the fishing vessels that breach the rules. The commission said there should be patrol boats, aircraft, boarding and inspections, arrests and prosecution to fight ‘illegal fishing’ in strict way. The Technical and Compliance Committee of the WCPFC sat in Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia, last month and waded through the technicalities of implementing Conservation and Management Measures (CMMs) agreed to by the annual meeting of the WCPFC.
Beneath these seemingly ‘technical’ issues, the broader debates in the meeting was over who, how and what to do about illegal fishing are played out in the game of international politics—involving the 17 Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency members (Australia, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu)—and nine distant water fishing nations (China, Canada, European Community, France, Japan, Korea, Philippines, Chinese Taipei, United States of America).
It is told that FFA member countries have pushed for several changes to fight illegal fishing and fishing on the high seas which includes making proposals about trans-shipment, observers of fishing vessels, a vessel monitoring system and others.
Since the WCPFC is relatively new, many of these initiatives are in early development—building, piece by piece, a fisheries management system that will cover the huge tuna fishery in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean.
