Island nations are now trading fishing days under a new scheme that aims to reduce tuna catches in the region by 30 percent compared to 2010.
The Solomon Islands has agreed to terms with the Marshall Islands to buy unused fishing days from the Marshall Islands, according to Transform Aqorau, the director of the Parties to the Nauru Agreement office in Majuro. This follows Papua New Guinea’s recent purchase of 500 days from Palau.
In both cases, the South Pacific nations had run out of the days allotted to them for 2011 by the eight-member PNA, which controls a vast ocean area where 25 percent of the world’s tuna are caught annually. The PNA also announced plans this week to hike the price of a “fishing day” to $5,000 beginning next year.
Some observers see 2011 as a test of PNA’s resolve to cut back fishing. At the end of 2010, PNA members — Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Palau, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Nauru, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands — agreed to cut fishing days from more than 40,000 last year to about 28,000 this year. In past years, some PNA members ignored limits and continued selling fishing days above their predetermined limits.
But Aqorau said that is changing this year, with PNA members showing commitment to limiting the sale of fishing days to fishing companies based on the agreed-to level.
In late 2010, Nauru ran out of fishing days and bought unused days from the Marshall Islands — the first time that any of the eight members had traded since the new “vessel day scheme” was implemented several years ago. While this trade was a positive development in the evolution of the vessel day scheme, both Nauru and the Marshall Islands are minor players in the PNA. The key is what the fishing “giants” that control the most lucrative fishing grounds — Papua New Guinea, Solomons and Kiribati — do.
This year, indications are they are backing the reduction by making use of the PNA vessel day scheme trading system.
“There are likely to be more trades in 2011,” said Maurice Brownjohn, PNA’s Commercial Manager based in Majuro.
