Pacific fishery group imposes sanctions on distant water fishing nations

Pacific islands that want to expand domestic commercial fisheries operations are threatening distant water fishing nations with sanctions for blocking their fisheries development. Tuvalu’s fisheries Minister Pita Elisala announced in Pohnpei Thursday that his nation is not selling fishing days to distantwater fishing countries that have blocked initiatives to develop their domestic fishery. Elisala was speaking during the two-day Parties to the Nauru Agreement or PNA annual meeting of ministers that ended Friday in Pohnpei. Last month, PNA officials wrote to fisheries officials in Japan and Taiwan and to the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation requesting meetings to resolve what PNA CEO Dr. Transform Aqorau described last week as “an embargo against island domestic development.” 

The PNA is a bloc of eight nations — Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Nauru, Tuvalu, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia and Palau — that control waters where about 50 percent of the global supply of skipjack tuna is caught. Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands have attempted to get purse seiners from Taiwan, but these efforts have been prevented, said Aqorau. Japan officials met with PNA representatives last month to address the issue, while PNA is still waiting to meet with officials from Taiwan and ISSF, said Aqorau.

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