“Tuna is the Pacific’s oil,” said Togiola Tulafono, who administers an American territory in the South Pacific. “We should treat it in the same manner as oil producing countries treat their resource.”
The governor, whose island hosts one tuna cannery and another that closed last year, delivered the keynote speech to the Parties to the Nauru Agreement, or PNA, eight countries that control an ocean area where 25 percent of the world’s tuna is caught.
Pacific islands cannot compete against Thailand canneries, which currently have a corner on the tuna market and set prices because of low costs, Tulafono said. Most Pacific-caught tuna goes to Thailand for canning, which “serves to depress prices, undermining” efforts to develop a tuna industry in the islands, Tulafono said.
“But Thailand cannot do much without tuna,” he said. “The PNA has the power to manage where tuna is unloaded and set the price. There is much we can do together to help one another in the Pacific.”
The meeting this week in Majuro is expected to endorse new tuna control measures aimed at giving the islands greater control, including a plan to close fishing in a large high seas area about the size of the continental United States from January 1 to reduce overall catches in the Pacific.
PNA officials are meeting with offshore tuna industry officials to discuss investment opportunities for on-island processing and transshipment facilities in an effort to increase employment opportunities and revenue for these small islands.
Tulafono said his government is making a major effort to revive the processing industry on his island and wants engagement with PNA to increase the supply of tuna for American Samoa processing plants. He also said American Samoa has friendly guest worker laws that give preference to Pacific island workers.
The 2009 closing the Chicken of the Sea cannery in American Samoa had a devastating impact on the local economy, putting thousands of people out of jobs and slashing government revenues, he said. Efforts are now under way to revive the cannery, following its recent purchase by global tuna supply giant Tri-Marine International Ltd. The company is looking at new opportunities beyond basic canning to include producing tuna in plastic “pouches,” and fresh and frozen fillets exported to the U.S. market, Tulafono said. American Samoa fish products enjoy duty-free status to the U.S. because it is a territory.
“Now is the time to require a minimum quantity of tuna to be landed and processed in the PNA region,” said Tulafono. “Tuna caught in the Pacific should benefit us first and foremost. It is time to control the extraction of tuna, the flow of supply and the yield of sales. This ability is in PNA hands.”
