By Bernadette H. Carreon
Horizon news staff

Palau is sending a fisheries observer today to accompany one of the commercial fishing vessels on their trip to revive the fisheries observer program.
Jim Kloulechad will be going to the fishing trip of one of the commercial vessels gather data to be used for science, compliance and surveillance.
Every month, three fisheries observers will board the commercial fishing vessels to gather data.
Peter Sharples, Port sampler and observer coordinator of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community was in Palau for a week to get the observer program going anew.
The Division of Marine Law Enforcement is now responsible for the program which was earlier tasked to the Bureau of Marine Resources.
Sharples said that the observer task is to gather "unbiased and independent" data that will be useful to the fisheries management in the region.
He said data that is supposed to be gathered by the observer includes the kind of fish loaded into the vessel, how much is marine species are thrown and how much are unloaded.
Palau has obtained training from the SPC on how to gather data as a fisheries observer.
Since the program was introduced to Palau in 1996, there were at least 10 observers who accompanied commercial fishing vessels and collected data.
He said he was in Palau to provide technical assistance to DMLE to get the program running again.
DMLE Chief Ellender Ngirameketii said that that Vice President Elias Camsek Chin who is also the Justice Minister is supportive of the program and is also looking into acquiring modern pieces of equipment to help the observers in conducting their duties.