PNA criticises outcome of Hawaii tuna meet

THE parties to the Nauru agreement (PNA) have expressed disappointment with the outcomes of the recent Western and Central Pacific fisheries commission (WCPFC) meet and reaffirmed their commitment to take PNA measures to conserve and manage tuna.
The PNA is made up of the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu.
The group is carrying out measures to conserve the tuna resources within its waters and to protect them from being over-fished by foreign tuna catchers.
Speaking on behalf of the PNA at the WCPFC meet in Hawaii last week, chairman Glen Joseph said: “We came to this meeting with specific proposals that we believe the commission would take in order to manage the region’s tuna resources”.
He said it was clear that the commission was unable to make decisions as had  been evident at the meet that also showed in the long list of issues that had been left for the future.
“It is becoming a commission that is being constrained by the inflexibility of fishing states to address bigeye and yellowfin tuna issues.
“We articulated our concerns to the commission at the beginning of this meeting, and came here prepared to work constructively with the members of the commission,” Joseph said.
He said some fishing states had no interest in positively contributing to conservation and management as was evident by their persistent obstruction to proposals throughout the week.
“We hope that there will be greater sincerity by others to make the progress next year,” he said.
PNA would continue to develop further measures to strengthen the management and conservation regime for tropical tunas, and looked forward to the commission developing compatible measures, Joseph said.