IUU fishing

The Quantification of IUU Fishing in the Pacific Islands Region Report also concluded that it's dominated by misreporting.

It said most of this misreporting was in the purse-seine fishing sector, despite 100 percent observer coverage providing independent estimates of catch.

But it does say it can be challenging to identify species and estimate catch at sea due to the scale of the catches.

The report further stated about 152 million US dollars of misreported catch volume was accounted for by the purse-seine fishing sector.

The move to strengthen tracking of Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported fishing vessels with another layer of information listing vessel masters, is hoping to gain traction amongst Tuna Commission members. 

 "At the moment we blacklist boats that have been caught illegally fishing, but as we all know, it is the people on board that are actually doing the wrong thing.  The Persons of Interest (POI) watch list will help detect vessel masters slipping through the current IUU vessel blacklist and going on to lead rogue fishing from another vessel", says FFA DG James Movick. 

A statement said the workshop will help participants develop their knowledge on the agreement to enhance cooperation between the Pacific Island countries in addressing illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing activities.

Training facilitator Mr. Allan Rahari of the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency’s (FFA) said developing procedures would help Tonga manage the agreement which would benefit the country at a national and regional level.