Confidence in sustaining fisheries

 PAPUA New Guinea has in place one of the best tools for sustaining tuna fisheries, National Fisheries Authority’s (NFA) managing director John Kasu (pictured) has said.

Kasu said: “We have a state of the art vessel monitoring system – which we will keep improving; and one of the largest fisheries observer programmes in the world. 

“The National Fisheries Authority has developed a catch documentation scheme to record all catches that are caught by each fishing vessel throughout Papua New Guinea. 

“It is with the backing of these systems and commitment to ensuring sustainability of our fisheries resources that the NFA is confident that we will ensure the sustainable management of our resources.”

Records showed that the volume of skipjack tuna catches in PNG averages around 500,000 metric tonnes with a high of 70,000 metric tonnes.

Tuna remains Papua New Guinea’s key fisheries export with beche-de-mer, prawns, lobsters and barramundi offering further export potential. 

Up to 18 per cent of the world’s total tuna stock is found in PNG territorial waters.

Kasu said Papua New Guinea now has six tuna processing canneries.

Most of the country’s canneries are located in Morobe.