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| Image: Flickr User - U.S. Department of State |
By Eileen Natuzzi
An outdated tuna treaty may have breathed its last. Time for a new U.S. policy for the Pacific.
Once again the South Pacific Tuna Treaty is in the news. But this year with heels dug in on both sides the outdated tuna treaty may have taken its last breath. For the past five years the tuna treaty’s annual funding negotiation has been an ordeal as the parties involved locked horns on how much the United States should pay to gain access to the Economic Exclusive Zone (EEZ) waters around Pacific Island countries. In the past, an agreement was eventually struck between the Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) and the American Tunaboat Association (ATA) so private US tuna companies like Tri Marine can fish in southwestern Pacific waters.
This year, though, the South Pacific Tuna Treaty has imploded. The U.S. State Department has pulled out of the treaty, the ATA has refused to pay the $67 million agreed to in August, and the FFA is scrambling to sell the vessel days the ATA have reneged on to other distant waters fishing nations like China, Japan and Korea. To make matters worse, two California Congressmen, Duncan Hunter and Juan Vargus, have proposed legislation to cut the $21 million per year appropriated as foreign aid to the 17 Pacific Island Countries that make up the Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) in order to bully them into allowing the ATA to fish in their waters.
Tuna is a big business, pulling in over $3 billion annually, but until recently Pacific Island countries have only seen approximately 14 percent of that value despite being the source of more than 60 percent of the world’s tuna. This year, led by the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA), some of the poorest nations in the world such as Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands have demanded a cut of the tuna wealth. Without their portion of the tuna treaty funds, which are divided among 17 member states, funding for capacity-building across many sectors including fisheries and health will suffer. To recoup losses the sale of vessel days to countries with irresponsible fishing practices in their own waters may hasten the depletion of Pacific tuna stocks.
Read the full story at The Diplomat