The revelation comes after Nauru, Tuvalu and the Solomon Islands closed off their waters to tuna fleets after meeting their quotas.
Permanent secretary for fisheries and forests Cmdr. Viliame Naupoto said the reason Fiji would not close its waters to tuna fishing was because it was bound by an agreement different from other Pacific island countries.
“Those countries which have closed off their waters are party to the Nauru agreement and they follow the vessel-days scheme,” said Naupoto.
He said countries which adhered to the vessel-days scheme were bound by an agreement to close off their waters after the maximum number of days had been reached.
“What the fleets do is they buy the days, so for instance if Nauru has allocated 3,000 days for a season, the fleets will come in and buy the days, so if 10 boats all buy the same day to fish then that counts as 10 days and so on,” he said.
He said Fiji instead used a system where a limit was placed on the amount of tuna allowed to be caught in Fiji waters.
“Our limit is 15,000 metric tons, so once we reach that limit we immediately put a stop to all fishing, however, we have yet to reach that limit for this year,” Naupoto said.
