Nine fisheries observers finally return home amid pandemic

NINE Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) observers were repatriated to their respective countries on a chartered flight last Tuesday.
According to a statement by FFA, the observers disembarked from United States fishing boats in Pago Pago, American Samoa, over the past several weeks.
The repatriation exercise was financed by the American tunaboat association (ATA) member vessel owners and coordinated closely with the observers’ national programmes and the FFA.
Those that were repatriated include three Papua New Guineans, two Fijians and four Solomon Islanders.
The observers, who returned to their home countries, were undergoing quarantine procedures.
Another Papua New Guinean observer, who disembarked in Honolulu and transited through California and then to Brisbane, also arrived in Port Moresby last Tuesday.
Some of these observers had been away from their home countries since last December or early this year due to the closure of borders as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In March, the FFA temporarily suspended the requirement for 100 per cent observer coverage on all purse seine vessels in the WCPO.
The temporary suspension also called for vessel operators to repatriate observers that were on their vessels.
Following the successful repatriation last week, FFA director-general Dr Manu Tupou-Roosen said: “FFA is sincerely grateful to the ATA executive director and its members for the hard work with the relevant national observer programmes and the FFA secretariat to ensure the safe return of our observers.
“The extraordinary situation we’re all faced with calls for closer cooperation, and this is a great example of this,” she said.
ATA executive director William Gibbons-Fly said the repatriation of the observers had been a considerable challenge from the very beginning but it was one that the association was committed to ensuring happened safely, and as quickly as possible.