Transcript
The director general of the Pacific Community, Colin Tukuitonga, says despite the huge importance of coastal fisheries to Pacific peoples there is virtually no surveillance and very little data.
"Tuna is where the money and the political attention is and someone described it the other day that we have spent a lot of time and effort in ensuring food security for the rest of the world but we have not done so well on food security sources for our own people."
The assistant chief executive officer of Samoa's fisheries ministry, Magele Etuati Ropeti, says while it is true tuna brings in the most government revenue, the value of coastal fisheries is immeasurable.
"You know our livelihood, our well-being is so dependent on these resources and even our own culture and traditions are based out of these resources and that is why we need to consider better management and better sustainable practices to ensure these future generations will actually have the same benefits as we do have now."
In recognition of these values, Solomon Islands deputy director of inshore fisheries Rosalie Masu says Pacific governments are getting their act together.
"The strategy is in place now with the roadmaps and pathways that we come up with from this meeting and even from the last heads of fisheries meeting two years ago have clearly guided donors to change this concept for having the focus for offshore fishing."
Gaps in coastal fisheries management and surveillance particularly have been exposed in recent years by poaching by Vietnamese blueboats.
These pestilent fleets have been caught fishing illegally in the waters of many regional countries including Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, Papua New Guinea, Australia and most recently in New Caledonia.
The director of Marshall Islands Marine Resources Authority Glen Joseph says the full extent and impact of such poaching activities are not known because there's no regional surveillance of coastal fisheries.
"I mean it is a concern for the region in that their activities are now expanding and perhaps encroaching as far as Marshall Islands. Capacity for monitoring, control and surveillance need to be beefed up in the region in order to include monitoring of these blue boats."
Other issues discussed at the 10th Heads of Fisheries meeting, which was hosted at SPC's Headquarters in Noumea include the need to rebuild bigeye and albacore tuna to levels that can sustain healthy populations and profitable fisheries.
Also on the agenda was development of a harmonized data collection system to enable evidence-based management measures for coastal fish.
