Greenpeace welcomes Nauru’s decision to ban fish catch transshipment and calls other nations to follow suit in order to protect fisheries resources of the Pacific island nations.
The longline industry is chronically unregulated and poorly monitored, and the high seas are currently acting as loopholes for pirate fishing boats. Out here, overfishing is the norm. Many tuna stocks are already in trouble, and illegal fishing is only adding to that pressure, warned Greenpeace Australia Pacific oceans campaigner Lagi Toribau.
Nauru’s ban was decided after Greenpeace activists onboard the ship Rainbow Warrior blocked a Taiwanese longline boat that was allegedly fishing in an illegal way in the high seas that border Nauru’s national waters.
According to the NGO, there are more than 3,500 longline vessels currently authorised to fish by the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC).
If fishing vessels had to go to land to transfer their catch, it would solve many of the problems out here in the Pacific. It would make it easier to properly account for and manage these catches, and also boost the economies of Pacific Island countries where the catches come from, Toribau claimed.
If the fishing industry is above board, they should have no problem with this solution. We need to put a stop to hiding dirty fishing practices out at sea, he added.
The Greenpeace campaigner stated that although over 70 per cent of the world’s tuna comes from the Pacific, only 20 per cent of that is actually caught by Pacific Island fleets.
He stressed that industrial fishing has a huge impact on the Pacific Island countries that have relied on tuna for generations.
In Fiji, local fishing vessels are mothballed and workers have been laid off. Local fisheries in Samoa, Tonga and other Pacific Island nations are also suffering.
The more countries that declare transshipping bans in their waters, the stronger the impetus for the high seas to also be closed to the practice, Greenpeace’s concluded.
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