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An Alternative Model of Development

Transforming TunaFisheries in PacicIsland Countries

July 2013



For more information contact:[email protected]

Written by:Chapters 1-3: Dr Kate BarclayOther sections: Dr HannahParris and Greenpeace.

Edited by:Sari Tolvanen, Duncan Williams,Seni Nabou, Hélène Bours, ElsaLee, Karli Thomas and Liz Gray.

Published in July 2013 by:Greenpeace Australia PacicLevel 2, 33 Mountain StreetUltimo NSW 2007

Australia T: +61 2 9281 6100

Printed on 100%recycled paper.

Design and Layout:Brandmad Frog

Cover Image: Locals catchskipjack tuna by pole-and-linein the Maldives.© Greenpeace/Paul Hilton

This page: Philippine purseseiner in the international watersof the high seas pocket No1.© Greenpeace/Alex Hofford

greenpeace.org.au

2 l Greenpeace l Transforming Tuna Fisheries in Pacific Island Countries l July 2013



Foreword and Acknowledgments .......................................................................4

Executive Summary ..............................................................................................6Recommendations ..............................................................................................8

1. Introduction ...................................................................................................10Industrial Tuna Fisheries in the Pacic ................................................................11

An Alternative Model: Smaller Scale, Bigger Benets .........................................13Locally Owned ...........................................................................................16

2. Case Study: Pole and Line Fishing in Solomon Islands ............................18 The Current Pole and Line Fishery .....................................................................20

Fisheries Management ...............................................................................20Price Premium ............................................................................................20Employment ...............................................................................................21Business Structure .....................................................................................22

Artisanal Pole and Line/Handline Project ...........................................................24Lessons from the Maldives Model ..............................................................26Fair Trade Certication for Artisanal Tuna Fisheries in the Pacic .................26

Meeting Standards ............................................................................................27Recommendations Arising from the Pole and Line Case Studies .......................28

3. Case Study: Longline Fishing For Albacore in Fiji ......................................29Locally Owned ..................................................................................................30Employment ......................................................................................................33Factors Affecting Domestic Development ..........................................................34

Fisheries Management ...............................................................................34Costs: Domestic Versus Foreign-Owned ....................................................35

Recommendations Arising From the Case Study...............................................36

4. A Business Model for Locally Owned and OperatedSmall-Scale Fisheries in the Pacic .............................................................37Principles of a Pole and Line/Local SustainableSmall-scale Fishing Business Model ..................................................................38

Assumptions Underpinning the Pole and Line Business Model ..........................38Summary of Business Model .............................................................................39Governance Arrangements ...............................................................................39Making Product: How to Get Product to Market ................................................40Contract and Pricing Strategies .........................................................................41Marketing and Promotional Activities .................................................................41

5. Conclusions and Recommendations ..........................................................44

6. Appendices .....................................................................................................48Methodology, Acknowledgements and People Contacted forChapters 1 – 3 of This Report ...........................................................................48Endnotes and References .................................................................................49

Contents

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Foreword and Acknowledgments

Sari Tolvanen, Greenpeace International Oceans Campaigner, July 2013

I am pleased to present this report which is the result of dedicated,collaborative work by an international team of academics andGreenpeace. This report was commissioned by Greenpeaceto provide Pacic island countries with a clear set of steps thatneed to be taken to transform the region’s tuna sheries sector.Greenpeace’s vision for this is based on models of shing that tapinto growing market concerns about socially responsible shing;are more ecologically sustainable, more locally controlled and bring

greater local benets.In just a few years, some of the major tuna consumer markets inin Europe, Americas and Australasia have begun to shift their tunasourcing to more sustainable and equitable methods. The entireUK, New Zealand and Australian tinned tuna markets for examplewill be supplied solely from pole and line, handline and FAD freepurse seine operations by end of 2016 the latest. Retailers andbrands from as large as Tesco (UK and elsewhere), Safeway (US),Walmart (US), Coles (Australia) are making binding and permanentcommitments to procure their tuna products from sustainable andethical sources. Also leading tuna brands and traders such asPrinces, John West and Trimarine are transforming their operations

to meet the requirements of these sustainable buyers. Princes,owned by Japanese Mitsubishi Corporation, and John West,owned by Thai Union, have made commitments to supply 100%pole and line and FAD free purse seine tuna by 2016.

Whilst many of the commitments and changes in shing practiceshas been focused on the canned tuna sector and sheriesproducing those products (purse seine and pole and line),the longline and handline buyers are also starting to demandsustainable, traceable and locally produced tuna for the fresh andtinned sectors. Japan and Korea are starting to show interestin sustainable seafood procurement as demonstrated by recentGreenpeace ranking of retailers in Japan.

In 2009, Greenpeace ran a pre-order petition in which retailers andtuna traders committed to buying over 70 million cans annually oflocally caught pole and line tuna from the Pacic. If rerun today,that amount would have doubled or tripled as demand has grown.Supplies, especially from the Pacic region, have not increased tomeet this demand.

As demand for sustainable and ethical products grows,opportunities open up for investment from the market to helpdevelop and ‘clean up’ sheries. 1


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With improved standards and resulting labelling and some casescertication, products can also expect to be achieving pricepremiums. MSC certied purse seine caught FAD free tuna, forexample, is expected to sell for 20% above regular tuna prices.Fair Trade certication is another labelling option that may becomeavailable for gaining access to markets with a price premiumand providing opportunities for community development in thefuture. Fairtrade USA has begun developing a wild caught seafood

standard, which could become an important model in ensuring thefairer returns for low insensitivity, sustainable and ethical productionof seafood are available to Pacic Island sheries. Whilst referringto the US Fair Trade pilot specically in this report Greenpeacerecognises that ultimately what is described in this report is a modelfor fairer traded sustainable tuna. It is for each tuna producer, brandand buyer to ensure these principles are developed, integrated andimplemented in their production and supply chains independentlyof any possible future certication. Greenpeace will be assessingmarkets, industry and government’s performance on the basisenvironmental, social and equitable production criteria.

Ultimately, the system should be fundamentally transformed sothat the production of environmentally unsustainable and sociallyinequitable products become economically undesirable andproducts complying with strict environmental and social standardsbecome the mainstream option.

The Western and Central Pacic is the largest tuna shing groundin the world but currently only stands to meet a miniscule amountof this increasing demand on sustainable and ethical products.

To date there has been little government level activity to ensuretransformation of its industry to meet this increasing demandbeyond the activities of the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA)to increase FAD free purse seine shing. The region can and must

do more to meet the new expectations of the consumers andmarkets the world over and reap long-lasting benets for its coastalpopulations and society at large.

This report provides a starting point to make this happen.

I would like to acknowledge the contribution of the lead author, KateBarclay of the University of Technology Sydney, Australia (UTS) whospent several months researching and writing the main chaptersof this report 1, and Hannah Parris who produced chapter four.

Also, Robert Gillett contributed greatly through helping design thestudy, suggesting useful interviewees and reports, and commentingon Chapters 1-3 in draft form. I would also like to acknowledgeMarc Allain and Robert Stone who completed separate reports forGreenpeace that have provided useful case studies.

A special thank you to the Greenpeace team involved on this project,especially our Pacic campaigners Duncan Williams, Lagi Toribauand Seni Nabou who shaped our vision and found time within theirextremely demanding schedules to contribute to this report.



Executive Summary

For years, Greenpeace has vigorously advocated for sustainableand equitable tuna sheries in the Pacic. Through the use ofsustainable shing capacity and mortality limits, techniques andparticipation at all levels by Pacic Islanders in their shery, Pacicisland countries could maximise and sustain the economic returnsfrom tuna resources. Given the historical dominance of large-scale and foreign operated tuna eets, the realisation of this visionrequires a complete transformation of the Pacic tuna sheries.Emerging market opportunities for socially responsible andenvironmentally sustainable seafood offer a new route to developdomestic tuna sheries.

Industrial and foreign-owned shing eets have depleted anddegraded tuna stocks and have employed few Pacic Islanders.

Apart from modest fees paid to governments to access sheriesin their Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) and some on-shore tunaprocessing, little benet has accrued to Pacic Island economiesand local communities.

Greenpeace’s vision for a transformed tuna shery in Pacic Islandcountries includes the following key aspects. Methods of shingused would be pole and line, troll, handline, free-school purseseine and best-practice longline. Tuna species would be harvestedat sustainable levels, with minimal bycatch. Tuna shing vesselswould be owned and operated by Pacic island communities andlocal entrepreneurs. Artisanal and village-based sheries would beorganised as cooperatives, to coordinate the sale of their catch andto set the strategic direction for their shery. Fish caught would beprocessed in the Pacic Islands region for canning, as well as forthe high value-added and fresh or frozen tuna markets and wouldbe ‘traceable’ down the supply chain. Products from such sherieswould receive independent verication of both environmental andsocial standards that can also ensure higher prices are fetchedon the international market compared to unsustainable products. 2

Partnerships with responsible and like-minded international retailers,seafood trading companies and other players would be necessaryto achieve the standards. The prices that such tuna productscould command would be enough to enable good local workingconditions and standards of living, food security, protection oflivelihoods and local development opportunities.



While domestic Pacic Island sheries have had mixed successin the past, Greenpeace argues that commercially viable, locallyowned tuna businesses are now possible, as demand forenvironmentally sustainable and socially responsible productshas increased and largely exceeds supplies currently available.Small-scale tuna operations such as pole and line and artisanaltuna sheries can use a business model based around the use ofsmaller-scale shing vessels and trading cooperatives to supply

international export markets for canned as well as fresh and frozentuna products.

In a fair trade model, a producer is guaranteed a minimum pricein a long-term purchasing contract so that, if market prices fall,the producer’s livelihood is not endangered. A percentage of salesare allocated for community development projects in the localarea. Communities supplying fair trade products must adhere toInternational Labor Organisation standards and implement agreedcommunity development plans. They must also be organised into atrading cooperative with democratic decision-making processes.

Support from governments and regional organisations is needed,

including implementing a management framework that protects thetargeted shery, undertaking taxation and rebate reform, adoptingpolicies that facilitate the involvement of Pacic Island stakeholdersin their shery and their training in business and managerial matters,and encouraging development of small and medium scale shingentities, particularly artisanal sheries.

In 2007, Pacic Island leaders publicly afrmed in the Vava’uDeclaration their commitment to take greater control over the tunaresources that are so economically important to them, throughpromoting domestic tuna development and strengthening regionalstrategic approaches to sheries management. This report providesa way toward achieving that vision.

“Only through a seismic shift in thinking can a transformation ofPacic islands tuna shery occur” (Transform Aqorau, 2012). Thetransformation is toward a tuna shery that is sustainable, controlledby locals and where the rewards are enjoyed by Pacic islandcoastal state peoples for the betterment of their living standards,and present and future livelihoods.



RecommendationsWith the aim of protecting Pacic tuna sheries fromunsustainable exploitation and developing smaller-scale andlocally owned sheries, Greenpeace makes the followingrecommendations to Pacic Island regional bodies andgovernments for achieving the necessary transformation:

Better managing the tuna shery:

• Exclude large-scale and destructive foreign-owned vesselsfrom national waters or parts thereof with strong considerationgiven to reserving inshore and archipelagic areas for sustainableartisanal tuna sheries

• Restrict catches to levels that are environmentally sustainableand economically optimal including through:

- limiting vessel license numbers- requiring vessels to avoid shing in the high seas, which are

harder to regulate and monitor and prone to illegal shing- banning all transhipments at sea

• Take grievances against harmful subsidies in the industrial shingsector such as for boat building and fuel for shing to UnitedNations Commission on Sustainable Development and to theWorld Trade Organization (WTO)

• Implement all measures to prevent and deter Illegal, Unreportedand Unregulated (IUU) shing.




Strongly supporting the development ofPacic Islander involvement and investmentin tuna sheries:

• Remove impediments to domestic sheries:

- address unfavourable cost structures for domestic sheriesbusinesses through:> taxation reform> setting sheries access costs higher for distant water

than local vessels

• Improve local participation in opportunities arising from tunaindustries by facilitating training in business management(e.g. in global supply chain businesses) and in shing as acommercial business. This could involve:

- targeting school leavers with relevant tertiary educationscholarships

– targeting aspiring shing vessel owner-operators– organising internships in progressive international seafood

trading companies

• Develop an independent, transparent and robust systemfor regulation, monitoring, consultation and reporting ofenvironmental and social impacts around tuna shing andprocessing, in close consultation with local communities:

– develop traceability systems for social and environmentalresponsibility standards

– work through complexities around businesses operatingin village environments, including customary tenure andmotivations

• Increase local benets from the longline shery by:– introducing mandatory crewing requirements

– investigating commercially viable ways of requiring vesselsto ofoad to local processors

– exploring regional collaboration to develop opportunities forlocally owned small-scale sheries such as:> For example, Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA)

cross border investment initiatives

• Ensure that domestic eets meet the highest standardregarding bycatch mitigation and avoidance

• Ensure all measures are taken to ensure food safetyrequirements

• Support the development and marketing effort of local pole& line operators with demonstrated positive impacts onenvironmental sustainability and local communities by:– showcasing certicated sheries via ofcial trade

conferences or tours

– assisting with trading agreements with third parties or

export market countriesEspecially promoting artisanal sheries:

• Reserve inshore and archipelagic areas for sustainableartisanal sheries only

• Develop a workable system for managing and regulating(licensing, monitoring, regulating, reporting) artisanal sheries,in close consultation with relevant communities

• Develop business plans for artisanal sheries supplying exportmarkets, using for example the fair trade model. Supportcould include:

– exploring models for trade cooperatives to coordinatemarketing of artisanal shing eets, including for fair trade

– enabling access to supply chains for high value exportmarkets

• Develop on-going systems of training for artisanal sheries infood safety and business management, via:– regional organisations, such as the Secretariat of the Pacic

Community (SPC) and Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA)-sponsored training programs on food safety and quality forsmall-scale sheries

– businesses with interests in the success of artisanalsheries, e.g. seafood export companies hosting trainingsessions for their artisanal suppliers

Making a priority of raising awareness atall levels about environmentally sustainableand socially responsible tuna sheries in orderto build and sustain market demand for poleand line, handline and sustainable artisanaltuna sheries




Kate Barclay, University of Technology Sydney, Australia

The Western and Central Pacic Ocean is the biggest tuna sheryin the world. By volume and value the bulk of the shery is destinedfor canneries – skipjack, albacore and yellown – but signicantamounts of fresh and sashimi tuna – yellown, bigeye and albacore– also make their way from this region to world markets. Commercialtuna sheries took off in Pacic Island countries in the 1970sand have been dominated by industrial eets. Most of the shinghas been done by foreign vessels paying access fees to island

countries for catching sh in their waters, usually only 5-6% of thelanded value of the sh, although the proportion has increased inrecent years. There have also been domestically based industrialeets, with vessels generally smaller than the foreign ‘distant water’industrial vessels, but still costing at least several million dollarseach, putting them beyond the reach of most local business people.

Although inequitable, access fees have nevertheless broughtmuch needed revenue to small island states, and partnerships withinternational rms with well -established supply chains have enabledexport market connections for domestic production. On the whole,however, it is clear this set up has been placing large prots intothe hands of multinational players instead of directing benets toPacic Islanders. Pacic Islanders’ dissatisfaction with the minimalreturns owing to them from the exploitation of their resources iscompounded by foreign shing eets and their governments fromwealthy industrial countries in Europe and Asia adamantly resistingmeasures to more effectively conserve the Pacic tuna resource. 3

In recent years, the retail markets for seafood in Europe, North America and many other countries have opened up space for‘environmentally sustainable and socially responsible’ seafood– meaning it is produced in ways that are environmentallysustainable and socially equitable. Increasingly, certication ofsheries as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC)is requested by retail buyers. Several sheries supplying globalcanned tuna markets attained MSC certication in 2011 and

2012. Greenpeace’s rankings of canned tuna have also informedconsumers. Consideration of the social conditions under whichtuna is produced is also becoming commercially important. Fair

Trade standards for aquaculture shrimp and for capture sheriesare being developed. Factories around the Pacic region thatmay process MSC-certied tuna are seeking certication underthe Social Accountability 8000 scheme. A recent Greenpeacepublication summarised the changing market conditions forseafood this way: ‘Visionary business leaders and politicians arerecognising the simple fact that running tuna shing sustainablytoday is the only way to secure supplies for tomorrow and beyond.Sustainable sourcing is an investment in the future – protecting localfood supplies, jobs and economies and also delivering a businessmodel that keeps the industry viable for the long-term’. 4

Introduction



There is hope that a shift away from the large-scale industrial modelof shing, dominated by large shing powers, towards smaller scalevessels operated in coastal island countries by communities andlocal entrepreneurs, should result in greater economic benets forthose countries, and place management of the resources moreeffectively within their control. Smaller scale industrial vessels can belocally owned and operated, even locally built, bringing the economicactivity generated from their activities within the domestic economy.

‘Artisanal’ vessels of less than 15 meters or so in length may be built,owned and operated from coastal villages, improving their supplies offood sh and livelihood opportunities. Local investors have a greaterstake in the long-term sustainable management of sheries resourcesthan the ‘distant water’ large-scale industrial eets that can move onafter overshing to maximise short-term gains.

This report presents case studies of smaller-scale locally run tunasheries operating in the Pacic, giving recommendations formeasures governments need to implement for a transformation oftuna sheries.

Industrial Tuna Fisheries in the Pacic As Pacic Island countries were becoming independent in the1970s they needed to expand and diversify the cash parts oftheir economies. It was hoped that Pacic Island countries wouldbe able to follow OPEC’s lead and use their raw commodities togenerate wealth from world trade 5. Pacic Island governmentstried two main ways to gain development benets from their tunaresources from the 1970s to the 1990s: maximising access feespaid by foreign shing eets, and government investment in vesselsand onshore facilities as owners or joint venture partners withforeign shing companies. 6 Public investment in tuna industries wasseen as a way to develop exports and to provide jobs.

The rst wave of commercial tuna shery development did not resultin thriving indigenously owned and run businesses or great wealthgeneration in local economies. Most of the government-ownedbusinesses lost money and eventually foundered by the 1990s. 7

Some, such as the Pacic Fishing Company (Pafco) plant in Fijiand Solomon Taiyo cannery in Solomon Islands have continued tooperate, and have provided large numbers of jobs over the decades,but were not commercially very successful, and required largeinjections of public funding to keep going. In the Federated Statesof Micronesia government tuna businesses are estimated to havecost the government over USD12 million annually. 8 Many PacicIsland governments gave up on the aspiration of domestic industrydevelopment, falling back on the idea of maximising access fees. 9



In the mid-1990s Papua New Guinea started a second waveof efforts to encourage local industry development whereby,instead of the government owning enterprises, it has used itscontrol of the resource to leverage investors to invest in onshoreprocessing (canneries). 10

Pacic Island countries are rethinking the ways they might use theircontrol of the sheries resource to get international companies to

invest onshore. For example, the Parties to the Nauru Agreement(PNA), a grouping of eight ‘tuna-rich’ Pacic island countries 11 , havein recent years raised their access fees through common licensingguidelines and benchmark prices. PNA members agree on a limitednumber of shing days for the year, based on scientic adviceabout the status of the tuna stocks. Fishing days are then allocatedby country and are sold as a tradable commodity called a ‘vesselday’. Previously, the standard rate of fees per standard vessel dayranged from US$ 900/day to US$2,500. In 2011 a vessel day wasworth US$ 5,000, which corresponds to 10% of the vessel catchvalue. 12 This was due to the PNA’s push for conservation andmanagement measures that ensure that the wholesale extractionof the tuna stocks is better regulated. More recently, an agreementwas reached in February 2013 to set a new minimum benchmarkof US$ 6,000. 13 Fiji and Kiribati have entered into a collaborationwhereby the atoll country of Kiribati, which has great sheriesresources but lacks the geography to have onshore processing, isrequiring investors to establish a processing plant in Fiji, which hasa more viable geography for processing. Since 2012 the SolomonIslands has required long-line vessels licensed to sh in the EEZto land their catch locally for processing instead of transhippingthem at sea, thereby boosting local development and employmentopportunities. More recently, Papua New Guinea’s NationalFisheries Authority has released a circular to all shing eetsoperating in their waters to begin ofoading 100% MSC eligible

free-school catch with effect from July 2013. Earlier statementsin March 2013 by PNA ministers to all eets operating in the PNAwaters encouraged them to start shing MSC free schools. 14

The majority of tuna shing in the Pacic, therefore, is done bylarge-scale industrial eets from wealthy industrialised countries.

The methods they use are longlining and purse seine shingpredominantly using FADs. There are some smaller-scale industrialeets based in Pacic Island countries, and some of these areowned by Pacic Islanders. Artisanal eets do not supply tunaexport markets in most Pacic Island countries.

Maximising Economic Benets fromTuna Resources: Why Are we Still Askingthe Question?

“This question was rst asked 36 years ago, “how can wemaximise the economic benets from our tuna resources?”Our leaders expected us to benet from our tuna resources.It was a given!

The agitation by developing countries to have a fairer share ofthe oceans resources was predicated on this belief. Indeed,the idea of the 200 mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) was

intended to do just that.

Why then are we asking the same question in 2012? Is itbecause we have failed? The answer is simple. One does nothave to be an economist, political scientist or lawyer to know.We can maximise the benets from our tuna resources if weown and control the vessels that harvest the tuna, own theproduction plants that process and value add our tuna andown the marketing and retailing platforms that distribute ourtuna products in world markets. If not owning the facilitieswe must retain control of our sh….. So it will take a majorseismic shift in mindset to transform the shery.”

( Dr. Transform Aqorau Chief Executive Ofcer – Parties tothe Nauru Agreement Ofce, Speech delivered at the Korea-South Pacic Fisheries Forum 17 October, 2012 Suva, Fiji) 15



An Alternative Model:Smaller Scale, Bigger Benets

There are two main problems with the large-scale industrial modelof tuna sheries. One is that large-scale industrial shing vesselsare associated with a range of negative environmental impactsincluding overshing, high fuel consumption and discardingunwanted sh at sea. 16 Large-scale tuna shing vessels aregenerally owned by companies from Taiwan, Europe, Japan, Korea,the USA, Philippines and increasingly China. 17 The governments ofthese shing powers have fought against measures to effectivelycurb overshing within the international organisations whose roleit is to manage tuna sheries, including the Western and CentralPacic Fisheries Commission (WCPFC). 18

Another problem with the large-scale industrial shing model isthat these vessels are high tech and cost tens of millions of dollarsto buy, and large cash reserves to operate. This makes themunsuitable to build or maintain in Pacic Island countries, andmakes it difcult for start-up investors from small island developing

economies to participate in the industry. These kinds of shingeets have not employed large numbers of Pacic Islanders ascrew, and the access fees they have paid have not resulted innoticeable development improvements in the countries in whosewaters they operate. 19 More benet can be gained from direct andindirect involvement in the shery by the locals.

A study by the Fisheries Centre at the University of British Columbia hasoutlined the signicance of small-scale sheries globally, and illustratedtheir benets compared to large-scale sheries (see Figure 1). 20

Smaller scale tuna shing boats are feasibly built, owned, operatedand maintained within small-island developing coastal states.

Having shing vessels based locally creates multiplier effects inthe economy through employment and other businesses neededto service and supply their operations. Human resources aredeveloped through working and training in the industry. Small

vessels that make short trips and enable crew to return homefrequently are much more attractive to work on than large industrialvessels that may spend months or even years at sea before goingin to port. Small-scale shing methods employ more people per tonof sh caught. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on The Rightto Food argues that large-scale shing vessels have made accessto food less secure and this should be addressed by supportingsmall-scale and artisanal sheries. 21 The kinds of supportsrecommended include facilitating small-scale and artisanal shersto sell their product in lucrative export markets, and establishingresource management regimes that enable their sheries.



Imagining More Sustainable and Equitable Tuna Fisheries

Emerging market opportunities for socially responsible andenvironmentally sustainable seafood offer a new route to developdomestic tuna sheries. What would more environmentallysustainable and socially responsible tuna shing in the Paciclook like? The methods of shing used would be pole and line,troll, handline, FAD-free purse seine and best-practice longline. 22

The tuna species targeted and sold in markets for sustainabletuna could be the resilient skipjack, albacore and under some

conditions yellown, but not bigeye until stocks have beenrestored to healthy levels. There would be minimal bycatch,with no targeting of sharks or shark nning. The vessels wouldbe owned and operated in coastal states, generating benetsfor island peoples in terms of food production, livelihoods anddevelopment opportunities. The vessels would be small – smaller-scale industrial vessels and also ‘artisanal’ vessels that may bebuilt, owned and run by families in coastal villages. 23 Village-basedsheries would be organised as cooperatives, to coordinate the

sale of their catch and set strategic directions for their shery.Fish caught would be processed in the Pacic Islands region forcanning or fresh markets, and would be ‘traceable’ down thesupply chain, so that at the retail end it is possible to know thatthe sh was caught in a socially and environmentally responsiblemanner. Coastal states, having vested interests in the long-term health of their resources, would be managing the sheriessustainably in concert with regional organisations such as the

Western and Central Pacic Fisheries Commission, the PacicIslands Forum Fisheries Agency and the Secretariat of the PacicCommunity. International retailers and seafood trading companieswould be working with Pacic Islander shing companies tosupply the highest value markets around the world. The pricespaid for the tuna would be enough to enable reasonable workingconditions and standards of living for everyone involved in itsproduction, and covering any cost differences between this kindof production and less sustainable methods.



Figure1. Industrial and Small-scale Marine Fisheries Compared

Source: International Collective in Support of Fishworkers, c.2010. Small-scaleFisheries (SSF). http://eussf.icsf.net/en/page/606-Small-scale sheries (SSF).html . 24

Large-scale Small-scale

Number of shers and shworkersemployed in marine sheries

9 million 52 million

Annual catch of marine sh

56 million 34 million

Percentage of marine catch used forlocal human consumption

56% 77%

Capital cost of each job on shingvessels

US30,000- $300,000 US$250- $2,500

Annual catch of marine sh forindustrial reduction to meal, oil, etc.

About 22 million tonnes Almost none

Annual fuel oil consumption

14-19 million tonnes 1-3 million tonnes

Fish caught per tonne of fuelconsumed

2-5 tones 10-20 tonnes

Fishers employed for each US$1million invested in shing vessels

5-30 500- 4,000

Discard rate

13% 3%

$ $ $ $ $ $

==



Locally Owned

Local ownership of shing companies and vessels can improve themanagement of sheries resources and facilitate more developmentopportunities in local economies.

The current state of overshing and depleted stocks in mostof the world’s tuna sheries demonstrates that the large scaledistant water shing eets that have dominated the sheries, andtheir governments, have failed to look after tuna resources. Theyhave weakened the efforts of Regional Fisheries Management

Authorities to implement effective conservation measures. In theWestern and Central Pacic Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) thecoastal state Pacic Island governments have been arguing forstronger conservation measures but been unable to realise themin this forum due to opposition from shing states. 25 For example,the ban on shing in high seas pockets achieved in 2008 wasoverturned in 2012.

In 2007, national leaders of the Pacic Islands Forum publiclyafrmed in the Vava’u Declaration their commitment to takegreater control over the tuna resources that are so economicallyimportant to them, through promoting domestic tuna industrydevelopment and strengthening regional strategic approachesto sheries management. 26 Pacic Island governments are small,with limited revenues, which calls into question their capacity toeffectively manage these sheries. There are, however, severalregional organisations that have been centrally involved in sheriesmanagement for several decades. Collaborative efforts via theseorganisations have already shown Pacic island states’ willingnessand capacity to make robust and on-going efforts at resourcemanagement. For example, the Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA)established an electronic vessel monitoring system and a registerof vessels compliant with license requirements. Catch recordingand stock assessments have been carried out by the Secretariat ofthe Pacic Community (SPC). The Parties to the Nauru Agreement(PNA) group of equatorial countries with the richest skipjackresources have in recent years stipulated 100 per cent observercoverage on vessels, banned shing in the high seas (relativelyunregulated) areas between the maritime zones of membercountries, and limited some purse seine shing activities.




Pole and line shing for skipjack is one of the modes of tuna shingthat can be socially and ecologically sustainable. The pole and linemethod has very little bycatch. Pole and line shing uses live baitto attract tuna to the vessel where they can be hooked and ippedinto the boat. The bait is small sh such as sardines caught in reefareas, and care needs to be taken to ensure that bait sheries arealso conducted sustainably. 30 Solomon Islands’ network of lagoonsmeans plentiful bait grounds and the bait shery remained healthy

even during peak pole and line production in the 1980s.31

The poleand line method is not suitable for catching sharks. Reef sharks areoccasionally caught in bait nets, but in general shark nning is notan issue for pole-and line sheries as it is for tuna longline sheries.

This mode of shing requires large shing crews, sometimesseparate to those catching bait sh, meaning more employmentthan the purse seine method. The pole and line style of shing andthe vessel technology is suitable for local participation, meaningvessels can be totally crewed by Solomon Islanders.

Solomon Islands had a large pole and line shery from the early1970s to the late 1990s. 32 lndustrial pole and line shing fortuna started there with Solomon Taiyo Ltd in the early 1970s,

a joint venture between the government and the multinationalcorporation Taiyo Gyogyo of Tokyo. 33 Solomon Taiyo usedmedium-sized (up to 200 Gross Register Tonnage GRT)Japanese-made steel hulled vessels.

National Fisheries Development (NFD) was another joint poleand line venture between the government and Solomon Taiyo,started in 1978. The aim of NFD was to further government goalsof localising vessel ownership, boat building and maintenance,eet management, and crew employment. NFD was successfulin achieving high levels of localisation in crewing, and in supplyinglarge amounts of sh for the Solomon Taiyo cannery. However, itwas never commercially competitive. Partly this was due to the

small size and low speed of the boats it used, and partly becauseits labour force could not yet match the established workforcesfrom competitor countries. In 1990, the government privatised thecompany and it eventually came to be owned by the multinationaltuna trading company Tri Marine.

In the 1980s, technical innovation made purse seine shing forskipjack viable. 34 Purse seine vessels are generally larger and morehigh-tech than pole and line vessels, so are more expensive to buyand maintain. Economies of scale meant the cost per ton of shwas lower than for pole and line. Fishing powers such as Japan,

Taiwan, Korea, Spain and China subsidised their shing and boatbuilding industries, which boosted the development of purse seine

shing for tuna (see Figure 2). Purse seine-caught sh ooded themarket globally and sh prices dropped. Pole and line shing forskipjack in developing countries declined globally.

Case Study:Pole and Line Fishing in Solomon Islands



2,000,000

1,800,000

1,600,000

1,400,000

1,200,000

1,000,000

800,000

600,000

400,000

200,000

0 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000


Source: Secretariat of the Pacic Community (SPC) Oceanic Fisheries Programme Tuna Fishery Yearbook data les.

Pole and Line Longline Purse Seine Other

Figure 2. Tuna Catches (mt) in the WCPF-CA by Purse Seine,Longline, Pole and Line and Other Gear Types, 1950-2008.

Towards the late 1990s, UK retail chain Sainsbury’s paid up to 10per cent more for quality products addressing social responsibilityfactors. 35 Around 2000, however, buyers were no longer willingto pay the price premium and it was no longer viable to producepole and line tuna in Solomon Islands. The Japanese joint venturepartner pulled out of Solomon Taiyo, leaving it a wholly governmentowned company, renamed Soltai. 36 NFD divested its pole and lineeet in 1999, expanding its eet of small-scale purse seine vessels

from two to ve during the 2000s.37

In addition to its shing eet, Solomon Taiyo Ltd had a cannery inNoro, Western Province. From 2004, NFD’s parent company Tri Marinearranged the export of processed tuna loins from the Solomon Islandsto Europe. 38 In 2010, Tri Marine acquired a controlling shareholding ofthe processing factory, now called Soltuna. 39

The European Union (EU) remains the main market for SolomonIslands’ sh. The EU has a 24 per cent tariff on imports ofprocessed tuna. Importantly, imports from Solomon Islandsare exempt from the tariff, enabling its products to competeagainst the main competitor countries, such as Thailand and thePhilippines, 40 despite its relatively high production costs. The tariffadvantage makes local processing viable. 41 Licenses for longlinecompanies now encourage ofoading in Solomon Islands, which

has increased supplies of sh for processing at the Soltunaplant, enabling the factory to operate more protably and employanother 500 people (see Table 2).

Recent global market concern about environmental sustainabilityand social equity in production has increased demand for pole andline caught tuna. In addition, due to the decline in the shery overrecent decades, the supply is also low, so pole and line tuna areonce again more attractive to shing companies.



The Current Pole and Line Fishery NFD has returned to medium-scale industrial pole and line shingin the Solomon Islands, and by 2012 has with three medium-sized(200GRT) vessels. Tri Marine has refurbished a large-scale poleand line vessel for the shery. NFD is also participating in an FFA-funded project trialling a new artisanal pole and line shery. 42

Fisheries ManagementIn order to be able to credibly market product as ‘sustainable’,and to meet importing requirements, independent, transparentmonitoring and regulation of, and reporting on, the shery isneeded. The capacity of the Solomon Islands government toactively manage its sheries is limited, not least because of its smallrevenue base. The Solomon Islands Government does not follow atuna management and development plan, nor has a formal sherieslicensing policy. However, Solomon Islands is part of severalregional organisations that support sheries management, includingthe FFA, SPC and WCPFC, and is one of the Parties to the Nauru

Agreement. These organisations, implement policies affectingthe activities of shing eets, such as recording tuna catches andcarrying out stock assessments. The New Zealand government hasbeen assisting the Solomon Islands Ministry of Fisheries and MarineResources with institutional strengthening as part of the Regional

Assistance Mission established in 2003.

Two long-term licensing policies have encouraged locally basedsheries and conserved stocks. First, these sheries have had verydiscounted license fees compared to access fees paid by foreignvessels, which goes some way to mitigating the costs domesticcompanies face because of high taxes. 43 Secondly, the Main Group

Archipelago waters around the main chain of islands have been

reserved for domestic sheries; large-scale distant water vesselsare excluded from this zone.

One of the features of the skipjack shery in the western and centralPacic Ocean is that the sh schools move with uctuations insea surface temperature, which alters with El Niño oceanographicconditions. Large industrial eets follow the sh and operate wherethe shing is best in any given year. However, because NFD’smedium-scale pole and line vessels use tropical bait, they mustoperate within a few hours of bait grounds, and a few days of theshore base, so can only sh around Solomon Islands. The Main

Group Archipelago waters are generally rich in skipjack even whenthe schools of sh in the deep water have shifted elsewhere, soprotecting this resource against overshing is what makes the poleand line shery in Solomon Islands possible.

In addition to being able to demonstrate to retailers and consumersthat sh caught in Solomon Islands has been caught sustainably,it is necessary to demonstrate that the sh in the can labelled‘made in Solomon Islands’ is in fact from that sustainable shery.‘Traceability’ is information enabling the tracking of sh from theretail shelf back to the vessel that caught it. It has long beenrequired for food safety purposes. NFD only employs traceability asrequired by importing governments and retail buyers for food safety.

A traceability system with third party veried chain of custody issomething that the government and operators will need to work onin order to market these products under their environmental andsocial credentials.

Price Premium

In recent years, the sh price for canning tuna has doubled itsprevious average price, and the continuing demand in the contextof declining catches means high prices are likely to be here to stay.

A pole and line shery can now be protable, even if pole and lineproduct is sold at the same price as purse seine sh. A company

like NFD, however, nds that the pole and line method is 40% moreexpensive per ton of sh, 44 and it does not make nancial senseto sell pole and line product at the same price as purse seine. 45 In 2013, retail prices for UK online groceries appear to now besubstantially higher for products labelled as caught by the poleand line method. 46 Buyers are offering a premium price of up to 20per cent. The exact amount of the price premium needed to makesheries viable varies from shery to shery, and the amount beingoffered is kept condential by industry players.



Employment

NFD’s operations generate jobs for Solomon Islanders. Table 2shows the employment at the Soltuna plant, which is mostly relianton NFD’s sh, although now it is also using albacore from longlineshing companies. As one interviewee put it, every Pacic Islandswoman working in a tuna factory is not growing her own food.So she is raising her own income, and also providing a livelihoodopportunity for other women whose food crops she now buys. Arevitalisation of the pole and line shery may potentially generatemany more jobs. Pole and line employment currently makes uparound 70 of NFD’s 280 jobs listed at Table 2. When Solomon

Taiyo had a eet of 20 vessels in the late 1990s, around 1000 menworked as pole and line crew. 47

Table 2. Solomon Islander Employment in Tuna Fishingand Processing Companies 2001-2012

Soltai/Soltuna NFD

2001 748 45

2005 850 75

2008 600 120

2012 1265 280

Sources: Gillett 2003; author interviews 2005, 2008, 2012;Solomon Islands Government 2012 p.11.

Most of the large-scale operators employ few or no PacicIslanders on their vessels. Pacic Islander crews often do not haveenough schooling to gain training and promotion in the industryso remain at the lower levels of pay. They also often experiencecultural shock at the life on board, due to cramped living conditions,long working hours, and feelings of cultural exclusion on vesselspredominantly crewed by other nationalities. Some of the largevessels are at sea for months or years at a time. Pacic Islandercrews have high rates of leaving their vessel before their contractis completed. On the whole, shing companies and boat ownersoften prefer crew from low wage Asian countries. 48

Medium-scale pole and line shing in Solomon Islands, however,is quite a different proposition. Pole and line shing in the tropicalPacic operates within a few hours of bait grounds, and a few daysof the shore base, enabling a much more favourable working life.

The smaller size and lower technical complexity of these boatscompared to the ocean-going large-scale vessels means a lack offormal schooling is not a barrier to training and promotion up theranks, so Solomon Islanders lled all levels of post in the eet by thelate 1990s. 49 NFD tapped into this workforce and the current poleand line operation is staffed entirely by Solomon Islanders, includingthe eet manager, maintenance technicians, shing masters andengineers. Locals working at all levels of operations mean moreemployment and skills and experience that can be taken into otherarenas if they move jobs. They become role models, demonstratingthat Solomon Islanders can be leaders in the modern economy.



Business Structure

NFD is a locally registered company, wholly owned by themultinational tuna trading company Tri Marine. Currently no localinvestor would be able to run a pole and line shery without tradenetworks and support as NFD does, so foreign investment isthe difference between having the shery and not. What does TriMarine bring to the table that local investors currently cannot, and

how might other private investors start to move into the sector,increasing local ownership in the future?

The central reason multinational investors are important is thatskipjack for canning is part of global supply chains. Its productionrequires complex market relations with many other producersin different countries. This is because inputs must be sourcedfrom multiple sheries to supply the needs of big retail and brandbuyers. To manage this most effectively, international tuna tradingcompanies have themselves increased in scale and complexity.Currently Solomon Islands’ pool of human resources includesexperts in catching and processing tuna, but there is not yet a poolof investors and managers with the expertise and contacts to beable to operate globally in this manner without the connectionsof a tuna trading company. Such expertise can be acquired, andnational human resources planning for the future should includedeveloping this potential through tertiary education scholarships,internships and so on, in collaboration with international players thatare showing interest in promoting and supporting sustainable andequitable shing

The most practical benet of having an internationally well-established company as the owner of NFD is ‘deep pockets’ forcapital investment in vessels and shore bases, and for riding out thebad years. Fish prices are likely to stay high, but even so the investorcommunity in Solomon Islands and the local sheries sector needseveral stages of development in order to be able to do even partof what NFD currently operates. Education for the international tunabusiness community is also needed on investment possibilities insustainable and equitable tuna sheries in the Pacic.

Local Ownership of Fishing Vessels –Canada’s Northern Shrimp Fishery 50

The Canadian government embarked on a domesticationcampaign for its northern shrimp shery in 1980. Withinabout 15 years, this shery was successfully localised bymost measures – Canadian companies owned the shing

licenses, most employment was national, and there wassignicant reinvestment of prots in coastal communities.

Vessel ownership was domesticated ‘on paper’ by theearly 1990s, however, as of 2010 industry and governmentinsiders estimated that as many as ve of the 12 companiesoperating in the shery effectively had half or more foreignownership. Several of the companies that complied withthe initial directives about localising vessel ownership in theearly 1980s went bankrupt. Others avoided domesticationof vessel ownership, utilising foreign owned vessels under‘royalty charters’, whereby the vessel owners paid apercentage of the value of the catch to the domestic shing

license owner. This practice became technically illegal after adecade, although apparently it remains in use under the term‘prot sharing’ with nominally Canadian vessel owners.

Why was vessel ownership more resistant to localisationthan other factors of production? Initially expertise in thestyle of shing and protable operation of the vessels washeld mostly by Scandinavians who had developed theshery. Norwegian credit for shing ventures was morefavourable than that available in Canada, and the Norwegiangovernment gave support to export industries. Thirdly thevessels were built in Scandinavia, their parts were mosteasily available in Scandinavia, and Canadian shipyards were

unfamiliar with those vessels, so maintenance was moreefcient in Scandinavia. The legal and nancial frameworksfor vessel ownership internationally means it is a commonpractice in many sheries to disguise the ‘real’ ownership ofvessels, and some vessel owners have made use of this tohave a shrimp vessel ownership company that is nominallyCanadian, while the real ownership of vessels has remainedbased in Scandinavia. One lesson from this case is that ifgovernments implement rules to force domestic ownershipof vessels but domestic ownership is nancially unfavourable,investors will likely work around the rules.



In some ways medium-scale pole and line shing in Solomon Islandsis more amenable to local ownership than shrimp shing vesselswere in Canada, because the boats are less high-tech and lessexpensive, and the shery has already existed in Solomon Islands forseveral decades so there is already the technical expertise in runningand maintaining these vessels. What Solomon Islands does not haveis a business sector with local investors experienced and skilled inoperating these vessels protably.

Pole and line vessels of the type that has been used in acommercially viable manner in Solomon Islands are steel hulledand made in Japan. There is no scope in the foreseeable future ofbuilding such vessels in Solomon Islands. The most feasible optionfor locally built boats would be wood and/or berglass.

In sum, increasing local ownership within pole and line shingventures such as NFD’s is a long-term proposition involving severalstages. A starting point is to develop the business community andencourage entrepreneurs who are interested in investing in sheries.When such businesspeople emerge, they may invest in shingvessels. The pole and line vessels that have been used in SolomonIslands to date, however, are too large and expensive for entry-levelinvestment. The starting point should be vessels of smaller size,cost, risk, and less requiring of outside connections to build andmaintain: artisanal vessels.



Artisanal Pole and Line/Handline ProjectDeveloping artisanal sheries to supply export markets is not a newidea, nor is it easy to realise. Dozens of projects have been carriedout all over the Pacic Islands since the 1970s with this goal, andnone of them have resulted in commercially sustainable supplies forexport markets.

A commercial shery must be viable within certain socio-economicrealities. In villages, social obligations are often prioritised morehighly than commercial imperatives. It is necessary to spreadincome sources across multiple farming and shing activities, andmechanical and logistical breakdowns can take weeks or monthsto x. People thus do not commit themselves full time to cash-earning shing activities for years on end, but stop and start shingdepending on these variables. Another point identied by agriculturaldevelopment researchers George Curry and Gina Koczberskiis that inputs requiring cash must be carefully planned for, as invillage economies it is difcult to accumulate cash resources forcommercial purposes. 51 However, artisanal village-based sherieshave been operating for over a century, mostly in the high-value, lessperishable commodities such as shells and dried sea cucumber, andprojects in areas with good logistical connections to urban marketshave resulted in on-going independent artisanal sheries, as long asthe provision of ice was supported. 52

Building on the lessons from previous projects and existing artisanalsheries, therefore, it should be possible to work out a model ofartisanal pole and line and/or handline shery in which villagersare willing and able to participate, to supply premium markets forenvironmentally sustainable and socially responsible tuna.

The commercial environment is currently more conducive than ithas been in the past. There is an increasing market demand forenvironmentally sustainable and socially responsible products, anda price premium for it. The industrial hub at Noro provides accessto cannery and the full gamut of tuna markets around the world.Fish prices are high. Regional organisations such as the FFA andSPC are supporting the project. NFD and Tri Marine management isinterested and willing to cooperate.

The Fisheries Development section of the FFA has been workingon this issue for Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Kiribati.Some aspects of the project for Solomon Islands have beenexplored, but the shery is not yet in operation. A bait shery alongthe lines of the village-based bagan holding net from Indonesiais planned, Indonesian operators have visited and showed howto build and operate bagans, and technical issues have mostlybeen worked out. For example, the light to attract sh will be LEDlight powered by batteries with solar rechargers instead of powergenerators. It is envisaged that the bagans can supply villages withfood sh as well as supplying pole and line vessels with bait.



The socio-economics of operating the village-run bait shery will betested once the system is trialled for supplying existing pole and linevessels. Bait grounds in Solomon Islands are treated as customaryland, and thus royalties are paid for their use. In the past, Solomon

Taiyo and NFD paid coastal villagers royalties and shed for thebait themselves. Customary owners preferred not to catch the baitthemselves since they could receive royalties for it anyway. Butvillagers without the rights as customary owners who might wish to

catch bait and sell it, would not be given access to the shery. 53 Itis thus a challenge, in the context of customary tenure, for village-run bait sheries to operate in a way that suits the landownersand provides commercial operators with reliable supplies of bait ata suitable price. Maintenance costs will also have to be plannedfor in a way that is manageable given the difculties accumulatingcash for such projects in village economies. The village-basedentrepreneur working on the project has experience designingbusiness plans linked to the tuna industry.

An additional challenge is for village-based shers operating smallvessels to provide product that meets the rigorous food safetyrequirements of the EU (the main market for Soltuna product).

According to Robert Stone, the FFA project manager, the vesselscan meet required standards by lining the hold with berglass, andtraining shers in hygiene and cold chain methods. This training isoffered by SPC, and training has been carried out with potentialparticipants in the shery, using NFD’s facilities at Noro.

Another challenge in developing this shery is that, for it to berecognised as sustainable, it should be managed, but artisanalsheries in Solomon Islands have never been regulated ormonitored - as they are not in most developing countries. 54 Government should take on a new artisanal sheries managementrole. Minimal standards of management for the shery need to

be developed. Data on the vessels and their catches should becollected for monitoring purposes. Limits on the number of vesselsinvolved and some kind of leverage over shers, such as may beachieved through licensing regulations, should be establishedso government can step in if necessary to prevent unsustainablepractices. Government will need to undertake extensiveconsultation with artisanal shers.

Based on previous experiences with coastal sheries developmentprojects, the main task will be in establishing a shery that bothworks for villagers and is commercially viable for export markets.Such a tuna shery has never existed in Solomon Island before, butit has existed in the Maldives.

The Maldives Model

The Maldives has had an artisanal pole and line skipjack sheryfor hundreds of years, and industrial purse seine vessels havenever been permitted to sh in their vast maritime zone. TheJawpanese Marubeni Corporation started buying tuna fromthe Maldives for canning in the 1970s, and a joint-venture

cannery was established on the island of Felivaru in 1978.During the 1980s when sh prices were turbulent, the Japaneseinvestors left the Maldives, after which state-owned enterprisesconducted all the trading in cannery and frozen tuna, and ranthe cannery. From 2003, private investment was allowed, but themajority of trading and processing of tuna is still done by state-owned companies. For social welfare reasons, the state-ownedsh buying company has paid shers a xed price for their tuna,even during 1999-2001 when world tuna prices collapsed. 55

The Maldives vessels are the same basic design as have beenused for centuries, although since the 1970s they have beenmodernised to include engines, berglass construction, andmodern navigational and communication equipment. Anothertechnological innovation was anchored FADs, introduced in the1980s. Now around half of the catch is taken around FADs. Theuse of FADs and communication among the eet while at seahas reduced the amount of time and fuel spent searching forschools. Production costs have been low enough to competeagainst purse seine sheries. Production boomed in the mid-2000s when the demand for socially responsibly sourced tunapicked up. Until the mid-2000s the vessels used only the poleand line method, targeting skipjack and yellown. Now, however,more than half of the artisanal eet also uses handline, troll and/ or longline methods, and targets a wider range of species.

Catches are split among cannery sales, high value sashimi exportmarkets, and local fresh markets, including the tourism industry. 56

The Maldives government has recently developed a formalmanagement plan for the tuna and the bait sheries. The sheriesare openly accessible to local artisanal shers. The resourceshave been protected by a policy of not allowing purse seining orgillnetting in the Maldives Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), andpreviously only allowing industrial longline vessels to operatein the zone 75-200 nautical miles out from the coast. The areainside 75nm is reserved for the artisanal shery. As the handlinesector has expanded, all foreign longline and other industrialshing operations have been banned in the entire EEZ. Theartisanal pole and line and handline tuna shery was certied bythe Marine Stewardship Council as sustainable in 2012.



Lessons from the Maldives Model

What lessons about commercial viability might a Solomon Islandsartisanal pole and line shery take from the Maldives experience?

A key point is that Maldives has no industrial scale sheriescompeting in the same shing grounds as the artisanal eet. TheSolomon Islands has a comparable protection of resources, in thatthe Main Group Archipelago (MGA) area has been protected from

heavy shing pressure through a policy of only allowing domesticcompanies to operate in the MGA. Until the late 1990s that meantpole and line shing was the only industrial shing in the MGA, sincethen NFD’s eet of ve small purse seine vessels have also beenoperating in the MGA.

Another point is the mix of gear type and markets used by theeet, which enables them to take advantage of wherever the pricesare best, and to sell the whole of their catch. The FFA projects isexploring the option that Solomon Islands’ artisanal vessels couldpole and line for skipjack for canning on FADs in the early morning,and then continue shing with handlines for sashimi tunas later inthe day. Now that NFD has a fresh and frozen exports department,an artisanal shery could also benet from this additional marketoption. Solomon Islands does not have a large tourism sector, buturban areas such as Noro and Gizo constitute useful local marketsto dovetail with export markets.

A third important lesson from the Maldives model is that theparticipation of villagers has been secured by a xed sh pricefrom the state-owned sh buying company. Without that, villagerscould not have sustained their operations when global pricesdipped below the costs of production, and it is difcult to maintaina position in the market if production ceases for periods of time.In the Pacic, state ownership of shing and sh buying entities inthe past is widely seen to have been a failure, and it is unfeasibleto propose government subsidisation of sh prices to supportthe development of an artisanal shery. There are, however, othersolutions, including Fair Trade. The Fair Trade mode of operationhas recently expanded into aquaculture shrimp. Fair Trade USA iscurrently working on a wild-catch sheries standard that could beapplied to artisanal tuna sheries.

Fair Trade Certication for Artisanal TunaFisheries in the Pacic

The Fair Trade Model 57

Fair Trade certication brands or products are for consumerswho want to support developing country producers in ways

that go beyond normal commercial trading relationships.One of the key features of the model is that in a Fair Tradepurchasing contract the producer is guaranteed a minimumprice in a long-term contract, and if market prices fall theproducer does not have to take a price so low their livelihoodis endangered. Another feature is that Fair Trade allocates apercentage of sales to be used for community developmentprojects in producing areas. Communities supplying Fair Tradeproducts, for their part, must adhere to International LabourOrganization standards and implement agreed communitydevelopment plans.

Fair Trade certication requires producers to be organisedinto a trading cooperative with democratic decision-makingprocesses for working out the strategy regarding sales ofsh to processors and retailers, and how to use communitydevelopment funds. The shing vessels would be separatebusinesses to the cooperative. The actual trading of the sh tothe processor and on to the buyer would be done by a trainedand experienced professional seafood trader contracted forthe purpose.

Several things are necessary for the Fair Trade model to work. A long-term contract with a buyer with a pre-agreed pricewould be needed. Processors would have to produce tobuyer standards (existing canneries in Solomon Islands andPapua New Guinea already produce to similar standards).

Artisanal vessels would also have to produce to the agreedstandards. Traceability will be necessary to assure retailersand consumers that the product they buy is indeed producedaccording to Fair Trade criteria. To meet the quantityrequirements for an ongoing Fair Trade contract, sh wouldhave to be sourced from artisanal sheries across severalcountries, and include product also from suitable industrialsheries, such as NFD’s existing pole and line operation.Partnership with a multinational tuna trading company isdesirable for shipping sh from shing vessels to processorsand on to buyers.



If a Fair Trade standard for wild-catch sheries is established,and if artisanal sheries such as the planned one in SolomonIslands are certied, that would solve one of the main issues forestablishing and maintaining village-based sheries supplyingexport markets – a stable price not subject to uctuating belowa workable level. The community development angle is also likelyto be attractive to participating communities. It would also bepossible to arrange pre-production nance in the contract, to help

with setting up the shery. 58

The Fair Trade label has good consumer recognition in many keymarkets. One of the potential problems for pole and line tuna in theenvironmentally sustainable section of the market is its juxtapositionwith ‘FAD-free’ purse seine tuna. Pacical, a global marketingcompany jointly set up by the PNA countries in 2011, securedMSC certication for purse seine sheries operating without the useof FADs (thus minimising bycatch) in 2011. Once this product isavailable for retail sale, demand for pole and line tuna may decreaseunless an alternative marketing edge for these products is developed.Fair Trade certication may thus help distinguish pole and lineartisanal tuna sheries from industrially caught FAD-free purse seine-caught product, as being socially responsible in a variety of ways.Fair Trade certication may also help establish the price premiumthat will be necessary for this product. It is not yet clear what theproduction costs of artisanal pole and line tuna from the Pacic willbe, but even if it matches the costs of NFD’s medium-scale industrialmethod, it will still need an addition price premium to cover the costsof the price guarantee and community projects under Fair Trade. 59

Meeting Standards The important markets for pole and line and artisanal sheriesare those with price premiums for environmentally sustainableand socially responsible product, and the EU with its current tariffadvantage for Solomon Islands product. In order to benet fromthese high value export markets a range of standards must bemet, and be recognised as being met. Many of these standardsmust be met and reported on by companies themselves, but someare the responsibility of government. EU import requirements, forexample, have stringent food safety and quality standards that mustbe met by producers and processors, and be monitored by an EU-recognised Competent Authority; in Solomon Islands, the Ministryof Health. In recent years the EU has also required minimumstandards of shery management to ensure illegally caught sh isnot entering supply chains destined for the EU, which must be met

by the Solomon Islands Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources.

It is important that credible systems for reporting on ecologicalconservation and social equity are in place for Solomon Islandstuna to succeed in the environmentally sustainable and sociallyresponsible markets. The marketing of Solomon Islands productcould be damaged by rumours about environmentally unsustainableshing practices, bad working conditions on vessels or inprocessing plants, grassroots opposition to operations or pollutionfrom processing plants. The tuna catches of industrial sheriesare monitored and reported to the WCPFC, but most of the otherissues are not covered by government. Robust and transparentprocesses for monitoring and reporting on social responsibilityand environmental sustainability factors are needed to mitigate thereputational risks from such rumours.



Recommendations Arising fromthe Pole and Line Case Studies1. Develop sheries management and development

policies that protect the resource and favour smallerscale and locally owned sheries.

a. Exclude large-scale and destructive vessels fromnational waters or parts thereof.

i. Reserve inshore and archipelagic areas for artisanalsheries.

b. Develop in close consultation with relevant communitiesworkable systems for managing (licensing, monitoring,regulating, reporting) artisanal sheries.

c. Develop independent, transparent and robust systemsfor regulation, monitoring, consultation and reporting ofenvironmental and social impacts around tuna shingand processing.i. Develop traceability systems for robust social and

environmental responsibility standards.ii. Develop thorough and ongoing community

consultation, including in coastal villages, to improvelocal participation in opportunities arising from tunaindustries, and work through complexities aroundbusinesses operating in village environments, includingcustomary tenure.

d. Alleviate unfavourable cost structures for domesticsheries businesses through, for example:i. Taxation reform.

ii. Setting sheries access costs higher for distant waterthan local vessels.

e. Where there are trade advantages for exports to the EU,ensure Competent Authority status in food safety andprevention of illegal shing.

2. Support business development for Pacic Islanderinvestment in tuna sheries.

a. Develop a human resources policy for management andinvestment in global supply chain businesses, and inshing as a commercial business. This could involve:

i. Targeting school leavers with relevant tertiary educationscholarships.

ii. Internships in progressive international seafood tradingcompanies.

iii. Schemes for developing business skills and commercialtrack record for aspiring shing vessel owner-operators.

b. Develop business plans for artisanal sheries supplyingexport markets, including the Fair Trade model, andsupport sheries where the business seems viable.Support could include:i. Exploring models for trading cooperatives to coordinate

marketing of artisanal shing eets, including for Fair Trade.

ii. Enabling access to supply chains for high value exportmarkets.

iii. Training (see point c below) and information services.

c. Develop ongoing systems of training for artisanalsheries in areas such as food safety and book keeping,utilising regional organisations and businesses withinterests in the success of artisanal sheries. Forexample:

i. SPC training programs on food safety and quality for

small-scale sheries.ii. Seafood exporting companies hosting training sessions

for artisanal shers supplying them.

3. Further increase public awareness aboutenvironmentally sustainable and socially responsibletuna sheries to build and sustain market demand forpole and line, handline and artisanal tuna.





Fiji’s industrial tuna sheries pre-date those of the Solomon Islands.From the 1950s Japanese longline shing used a port the island ofOvalau as a transhipment base. The Fijian government moved intopole and line shing in the early 1970s, building a eet of vesselsand domestic catching capacity that continued throughout the1980s. Japanese investor C. Itoh established the Pafco canneryat Levuka in the early 1970s, but left during the 1980s, and sincethen the cannery has been government owned. The cannery was

the major buyer for catch from the local pole and line eet. In the1990s the cannery entered into an arrangement with the major USbrand Bumble Bee to process mainly albacore, so purchases fromthe pole and line eet decreased and the eet closed down.

Domestic Fijian longline sheries started in the late 1980s whenmonolament line technology and smaller longliners of less than60 GRT were introduced to the region. A devaluation in the Fijiandollar encouraged exports, and the start of direct passenger ightsto destinations with sashimi markets, such as Japan, providedfurther impetus for the industry. At this time prices for sashimi werehigh and the shery was very protable. 60 Fiji Fish, owned by localentrepreneur Graeme Southwick, was soon followed by Solander

(Pacic), a local branch of a New Zealand shing company. Chinese

longline vessels started operating in Fiji in the 1990s, some of whichare based locally and licensed to sh in Fiji’s EEZ. A group of larger

Taiwanese and Chinese longline vessels are based in Fiji but onlylicensed to sh on the high seas or in other EEZs. 61 In 2011, 67vessels were licensed to sh in Fiji and 71 were based in Fiji to shin the high seas and elsewhere. 62

Due to the nature of the shery, Fiji’s longline tuna vessels catch arange of types of tuna, which need to be sold in different markets.

Yellown, bigeye and, more recently, albacore of a sufciently highgrade to sell in overseas sashimi markets is air freighted, or frozento ultra-low temperatures and shipped to export markets such asJapan. 63 Some slightly less high quality sh is processed into tunaloins, steaks or llets, and also exported. A portion of the catchsuitable for fresh consumption is sold to domestic sh markets,including for the tourism industry. One industry source estimatedthat 80 per cent of his company’s catch is sashimi and fresh. 64 Lower grade albacore is sold for canning, including to Pafco. Whilesashimi exports are the highest value part of the catch, each ofthese markets is important to the overall viability of the shery,enabling the whole catch to be sold.

Case Study:Longline Fishing For Albacore in Fiji



Overshing and sheries management failures have meant thecatch per unit of effort (CPUE) for bigeye and yellown has declinedsince the early 2000s, and more recently some industry participantshave reported declines in albacore. 65 Rising fuel prices, fallingsashimi prices in Japan and declining catches of the highest valuesashimi portion of the catch have meant that, even with record highprices for cannery tuna, the protability of the shery as a whole hasreduced from the early 2000s.

To promote local participation and development, indigenous Fijiansare provided preferential licensing conditions, with 20 longlinelicenses reserved for indigenous Fijians under the 2002 TunaManagement and Development Plan. Licensing details may changesomewhat, but the policy of promoting indigenous ownership oflongline vessels has continued for some years.

While there were quite a few indigenous shers skilled at catchingtuna on industrial vessels , none had experience owning andrunning a vessel as a commercial concern and none had thecapital (or access to commercial credit) for buying a vessel.

The Ministry of Fisheries and Forest established a Seed Capital

Assistance Revolving Fund, whereby the Ministry put up one thirdof the required nance, and the Fiji Development Bank the othertwo thirds, with shers putting assets such as their houses up ascollateral for the loans. The scheme, however, started just at thepoint when regional overshing of the sashimi species yellownand bigeye started to take effect in falling catch rates of the highestvalue portion of the catch, fuel costs started to skyrocket and itwas very difcult to turn a prot. Furthermore, the scheme onlymade around 30 per cent of the cost of a good vessel availableso participants made do with inefcient old vessels with highmaintenance costs that proved impossible to run protably. 66 Several of the indigenous vessel owners went bankrupt. Others

teamed up with Chinese investors. The program was based on the assumption that skilled sherscould become skilled shing entrepreneurs. This idea is notsupported by empirical evidence; most tuna businesspeople in thePacic had track records in shing businesses or other businessesbefore becoming tuna vessel owners. Business skills are quitedistinct from shing skills. 67 According to interviewees, if therewere to be another effort to promote indigenous vessel ownershipthere would need to be more focus on the business training andexperience, including possibly internships and partnerships withexisting commercial operators.

Locally Owned‘Fiji Fishing Vessels’ under section 2 of the Fisheries Act (1991)are vessels registered in Fiji or operating in Fiji and wholly ownedby a Fijian citizen or by a company incorporated in Fiji and at least30% owned by a Fijian citizen. The shery has been reservedexclusively for Fijian shing vessels under this denition, with nodistant water longline shing licensed to operate in the Fijian EEZ.

Ofcial interviewees see this as a good model for other PacicIsland countries.

The Fijian longline industry is made up of two clear interest groups.One is the veterans of the industry, particularly Fiji Fish andSolander, represented by the Fiji Tuna Boat Owners Association(FTBOA). The other, the Fiji Offshore Fisheries Association (FOFA),is made up of companies owned by ethnic Chinese investors(some of whom have Fijian citizenship), such as Golden Oceanand Hangton Pacic. The vessels of both groups are dened as‘domestic’ under the Fisheries Act but the FTBOA see themselvesas Fiji’s ‘real’ domestic eet. They have locally agged vesselsand employ mostly Fijian nationals (see below for details). Theyhave shore bases and conduct their commerce through the Fijianeconomy. Their key complaint about Chinese investors in Fiji’slongline shery is that these foreign investors have access to morefavourable nancial arrangements, including subsidies. 68

Subsidies for sheries are widespread internationally. Manydeveloping countries provide small subsidies for fuel and or ice-making to support livelihoods and food production, but some ofthe largest subsidies are provided by the governments of majorshing powers. Japan, Korea, Taiwan and China support theirshing industries in various ways from boat building to accessfees. 69 According to a recent WWF report, Chinese agged tuna

shing vessels, even under charter, receive a rebate when theprice they pay for fuel is over USD760 per tonne, and the Chinesegovernment pays up to half of their license fees when shing inPacic Island countries. Chinese vessels that reag to a PacicIsland country reportedly receive an export rebate on the cost ofbuilding the vessel. 70 The FTBOA members feel that, because ofthe subsidies, their vessels are not on a ‘level playing eld’ and theycannot match their competitors’ prices. 71



The government’s position is to support international investorsworking in partnership with Fijians to tap into shery resourcesin the region, while ensuring all Fiji agged vessels (includingthose connected to overseas investment) comply with applicableconservation and management measures. 72 FOFA, comprisingabout 70 per cent of the industry, has a different perspectiveon what is important about domestic industry development inFiji’s longline shery. It argues that an open investment policyencourages a stronger industry and thus more benets for Fiji as awhole. Enabling the Fijian longline industry to expand creates morevalue-added processing on shore, more employment and moreexport revenue. Tuna is now Fiji’s second biggest export earnerafter tourism, and has been an important area of growth with thehole in the economy left by the declining sugar industry. FOFAargues that the nancial markets in Pacic Island countries cannever compete with those of bigger countries so it makes senseto seek nance offshore where possible: the important thing is thatcompanies provide economic development. 73

The three companies listed in Table 3 are the main domesticcompanies. They buy the catch from their chartered vesselsto process and market, and also provide maintenance andprocurement services for the chartered vessels. The governmentregularly monitors the chartering arrangements to ensure there

is no element of ‘foreign control’. Fiji Fish has worked with Taiwanese chartered vessels, while Golden Ocean’s charteredvessels are Chinese.

Domestic ownership of longline vessels is viable in Fiji. Accordingto industry sources, you can maintain and even build longlinersin Fiji and a good vessel of the type commonly used in Fiji costsaround USD1 million.75 However, the indigenisation program trialledin the mid-2000s shows the pitfalls of policies pushing domesticownership without careful calibration to commercial conditions.Furthermore, all interviewees agreed that in some cases the localcomponent of ownership is meaningless and that some vessels arereally owned by overseas investors. This corroborates the Canadianshrimp case study (see page 22), that when it is advantageous forvessel ownership to remain overseas, companies will work aroundlegal domestic ownership requirements. Technically there is somemeasure of Fijian ownership in all of the companies, but the extentvaries to which this ownership translates to benets for Fijiansociety. It would be very difcult, even impossible, for the Fijiangovernment to force companies to give accurate information abouttheir real ownership arrangements, or to force companies to havereal ownership vested in citizens.

What the government can do is structure the regulatoryenvironment to encourage desired kinds of development(environmentally responsible, providing local jobs and developmentopportunities) and deny access to the resource by companiesthat do not do these things. Fiji Fish, Solander and Golden Ocean

generate quite a lot of employment. Other companies reportedlyemploy very few Fijians, with their contribution to the Fijian economyconsisting in basing their vessels locally and landing their catch inFiji for processing and export.



EmploymentLike the Solomon Islands, Fiji’s history of domestic sheriesdevelopment that enabled large numbers of nationals to gainexperience and qualications in industrial tuna shing. This isreected in the fairly high rates of Fijian crew, including seniorcrew, employed by some of the domestic companies (see Table 4).

According to company owner Grahame Southwick, the vessels Fiji

Fish owned are fully crewed by Fijians, except for the captains, whoare Korean. On the chartered vessels half of the crew are Fijian,while the rest are a mixture of Indonesian, Filipino and mainlandChinese. On Solander vessels, most of the captains and chiefengineers are expatriates, but the rest of the crew are local. On theSolander shore base there is only one expatriate employee.

According to Golden Ocean, they employ about ve or six Fijians onevery vessel. All three companies said they employed Fijians ratherthan expatriates because it was economical to do so, not becausethey were required to do so by government regulations. 76

A mandatory crewing requirement would be one way to bringmore of the benets from shing into the Fijian economy, boostingemployment in a country with serious unemployment problems.

The Fijian government does not have any regulations about hiringnational crew, believing such a policy could affect commercialviability, so instead informally encourages companies to hirenational crew where possible. 77 Reportedly some companies hirevery few or no Fijian crew. Since Fiji Fish, Solander and GoldenOcean do nd it commercially viable to use Fijian crew, and thereare existing educational institutions that could upgrade maritimetraining, it seems regulations or incentives for localising crewcould be pursued.



Localising Crew – Lessons from Canada’sNorthern Shrimp Fishery

In 1980, with the aim of domesticating Canada’s northernshrimp shery, government regulations required all vesselsagged in Canada to be 100 per cent domestically ownedand crewed. Local crewing policies were implemented

through sheries licensing and regulatory agencies.However, it proved impossible to comply immediately, andsenior levels of crew were still not entirely Canadian for adecade. The rst attempt to recruit indigenous crew failedbecause the men they targeted were less interested in andable to adjust to life on board. Indigenous crew tended notto rise above basic levels because they spent less time atsea as they chose to do other things in addition to shing,and there was a disinclination to have hierarchical relationsover other indigenous crew. Latterly, recruiters targetedschool leavers and provided orientation and training, andhad better success rates.

As the Canadian example illustrates, local crewing policiesmust be based on a thorough and realistic understandingof the labour market. Building a skilled labour force takestime - perhaps decades - and a determined governmentpolicy.78 Senior levels may require considerable training.

There is a worldwide shortage of marine engineers,so some senior positions may be held by foreignersindenitely. Requiring companies to demonstrate toagencies responsible for labour policies and immigrationthat each and every expatriate employee is necessary isan incentive to transition to local crews.

These lessons from the Canadian shrimp shery are relevant forPacic sheries seeking to shift towards local crewing. A successfultransition to local crewing could take many years, 79 however, Fijianshave been crewing tuna shing vessels for some decades now.Regulations by several different government departments may beneeded to implement crewing requirements. It could be conductedthrough vessel licensing, and/or through the Maritime Safety

Authority, which also has authority over crewing. National trainingand maritime code standards would need to be brought in line withinternational standards, especially for the training of senior crew.

Training would also be needed to prepare junior crew for the paceof work and food safety requirements on vessels.

Factors Affecting DomesticDevelopment

Fisheries Management

Since the 2002 Tuna Management and Development Plan wasimplemented , a mainstay of Fiji’s sheries management has beento reserve the EEZ shery for vessels dened as Fijian and todeny access to it by distant water longline eets. This measure,however, has not effectively conserved the resource to optimumeconomic levels. 80

Since the early 2000s, FTBOA has been speaking out aboutdeclining catches in the valuable sashimi species (bigeye andyellown) damaging their protability, and more recently havebeen sounding alarms about albacore. 81 Several industry sourcesnoted that declining catches have been a serious impedimentto domestic development for some years. Some of the stockdeclines are caused by shing outside Fiji, including overshingof juvenile bigeye and yellown by purse seine eets setting on

FADs, but some industry stakeholders assert that the sheriesadministration could also do more within Fijian waters. FTBOAthinks the number of domestic licenses should be capped ataround 50, and that the non-licensed vessels based in Fiji thatsh in the high seas should be banned because in reality theyare competing for the same stocks as are caught within the EEZ.Fiji and other southern longline countries could follow the lead ofthe Parties to the Nauru Agreement: through license conditions,they have required purse seine vessels to bring their shing intoEEZs where it is easier to regulate and monitor their activities, anddisallowed transhipment at sea.

According to industry stakeholders, the new Tuna Managementand Development Plan has as one of its key goals to contribute toFiji’s economy through growth in onshore processing and offshoresheries. Industry sources noted, however, that there is alreadyexcess vessel capacity and that will need to be addressed beforethe domestic industry can grow. Indeed any growth will have tobe innovative, given that catches cannot expand. Other industrysources corroborated the hope that the new Plan will protectsharks. Exports to key markets in the EU and USA threaten to bederailed by concerns that the longline industry may be harmingsharks, and rely on government commitments to manage thismore effectively.



Fiji’s albacore longline shery was certied by the MSC in 2012.For exports to the EU, the Fijian government has to be recognisedas a Competent Authority to ensure no illegally caught sh enterssupply chains destined for the EU. Fiji has established such acompetent authority and has been granted access to exportseafood to EU markets.

Costs: Domestic Versus Foreign-Owned

Governments can encourage local ownership of shing by ensuringthe costs of domestic operators are favourable (or at least are notunfavourable) compared to the costs of foreign-owned and distantwater vessels. Interviewees from the FTBOA stressed that, in thecurrent environment, domestic operators who source most oftheir inputs in the Fijian economy are disadvantaged compared todistant water vessels and locally based companies that are able tosource inputs in overseas markets. The most glaring examples aresubsidised vessels and fuel. Fuel in Fiji is very expensive. Comparedto bigger shing centres where shing gear is sold locally, Fijiancompanies must import much of their gear, adding freight costs tothe cost of the gear.

The taxation system in Fiji and most other Pacic Island countriesadds to the costs of domestic operators because of the dutieson many inputs. To try to minimise the impact of the duties,there is a sheries taxation incentives package involving rebates.For example, the fuel rebate means longline companies onlypay FJD0.02 per litre of duty on top of the fuel price (instead ofFJD0.18). Bait is duty free. Fishing gear and vessel parts havepartial duty rebates. 82 Reviews of sheries taxation in PacicIsland countries, however, recommend signicant changes, withno taxes or duties on raw materials, intermediate inputs, capitalgoods or business service inputs on production. These reviewsrecommended that to encourage production, it should not betaxed, while consumption, income and prots should be taxed. 83



Recommendations ArisingFrom the Case Study 1. Develop sheries management and development

policies that protect the resource and favour smallerscale and locally owned sheries.

a. Give sheries access only to smaller scale and locallyowned vessels (not large-scale or subsidised distant watervessels).

b. Restrict catches to levels that are environmentallysustainable and economically optimal including through:

i. Active campaigning for conservation measures in theWestern and Central Pacic Fisheries Commission.

ii. Limiting vessel license numbers.iii. Requiring vessels to avoid shing in the high seas, which

are harder to regulate and monitor, and prone to illegalshing.

iv. Ban transhipment at sea by the domestic eet andvessels contributing sh to processing.

c. Alleviate unfavourable cost structures for domesticsheries businesses through, for example:i. Campaign in the United Nations Commission on

Sustainable Development and in the World TradeOrganization against subsidies for boat building andfuel for shing in the industrial sector.

ii. Taxation reform.

iii. Setting sheries access costs higher for distant waterthan local vessels.

d. Where trade advantages exist for exports to the EU,ensure governments have Competent Authority status infood safety and prevention of illegal shing.

2. Support business development for Pacic Islanderinvestment in tuna sheries

a. Boost indigenous participation in ownership andmanagement in the longline shery through measuressuch as:

i. Establish training and internship programs on thebusiness of tuna shing.

ii. Establish schemes for aspiring indigenous owner/ operators to invest in lower cost sheries, to establishcommercial track records, before seeking to invest intuna boats.

b. Increase local benets from the longline shery by:i. Introducing mandatory crewing requirements.

ii. Investigating commercially viable ways of requiringvessels to ofoad to local processors.

iii. Exploring regional collaboration to developopportunities for locally owned small-scale sheries,using as inspiration the collaboration achieved by theParties to the Nauru Agreement and ideas comingfrom the Forum Fisheries Agency’s Regional EconomicIntegration program.




Dr Hannah Parris and Greenpeace

The key message from this report is that small-scale and evenartisanal pole and line tuna sheries present a real opportunityfor Pacic coastal states to develop a protable, environmentallysustainable and socially responsible domestic shery sector.

For pole and line, handline, or other local sustainable eet tobecome operational, it needs to be a viable and long term businessable to conduct shing activities protably and manage the risksassociated with the tuna industry. This section provides ideas forthe structural and operating model of a pole and line and othersmall-scale local tuna shery.

Philipson (2008) concludes that a successful business venturerequires three things: raw material production; product conversionand marketing; and intangible factors such as managerial skilland the overall business enabling environment. A business modelsets out how an entrepreneur will bring these successful elementstogether, and importantly, how he or she will manage the risksinvolved in the production process. 84

This report has provided an overview of the components of thetuna industry, the way it operates, examples of ‘lessons learned’and a discussion of the trade considerations into major markets.Each component can be thought of as critical in understandingthe context, opportunities and challenges of developing a localsustainable shing based enterprise.

There is already a large amount of processing capacity in thePacic. The economics of the industry place considerable pressureon producers to reach economies of scale. In addition, producersface complex and expensive regulatory processes to qualify forexporting to the EU – only Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea(PNG) and Fiji have suitable arrangements in place. 85 This suggeststhat rather than ‘reinventing’ the wheel, the pole and line/othershing business should utilise existing processing capacity withinthe region. The shing business should work with, or partner with,companies that can deliver networks, information, technical andnancial skills that may be lacking in the Pacic.

The history of business failures in the Pacic underscores theimportance of securing well trained, professional and experienced

managers to operate the pole and line business. Governmentshave a critical role in developing and ‘enabling’ a suitable businessenvironment for local or private enterprise in sustainable tunashing businesses.

A Business Model for Locally Owned andOperated Small-Scale Fisheries in the Pacic



Principles of a Pole and Line/LocalSustainable Small-scale FishingBusiness Model

The development of a business model needs to be underpinnedby two principles. First, small-scale tuna shing businesses needto be economically viable and not dependent over the long termon government subsidies, preferential treatment, tariffs or donorassistance. That is, the business model needs to make a netpositive contribution to the communities within which it operatesand to the national economies of the country involved. The primary

purpose is to make a viable, sustainable livelihood for participantswithin the context of an ecologically sustainable shery.

Second, the business model needs to work within the geographical,economic, biological, political, cultural and human resourcecircumstances of a Pacic shery. Key considerations include:• Conducting business in the Pacic is expensive, e.g. due to

geographical distance from markets• Business management expertise is quite limited

• The economics of the industry lean towards centralisation offacilities.

• The lack of an enabling business environment and general lack ofsupport from government.

Assumptions Underpinning the Poleand Line Business Model

This business model has six assumptions:• There is a reliable, robust demand for sustainably caught Pacic

tuna in the EU and elsewhere, such as Australia, New Zealandand North America.

• There are foreign buyers willing to enter into long-term contractsfor small-scale tuna sheries.

• Pole and line sheries (both bait and tuna) are conducted sustainablyand the product is therefore able to attract a price premium, and thatthis premium is acceptable to end market consumers.

• Governments are willing to regulate shing activities in waterssuitable for pole and line shing so that competition from large-scaleshing is removed (including for bait). This is especially important.

• There are shers in the Pacic willing and able to engage in a poleand line shery.



Summary of Business Model The pole and line business model is proposed to consist of the followingkey components. A central trading company, a ‘trading cooperative’ isformed as a cooperative business jointly owned by pole and line vesseloperators. The cooperative contracts both with pole and line vessels tosh and deliver catch to Pacic Island Country (PIC) based processingand with PIC based canneries to can the product at a suitable export

standard. It also contracts with foreign buyers, negotiating over prices,delivery dates and quality. Prices comprise two elements:

• A “fair trade” price that covers the cost of production andprovides a viable, living wage.

• A “fair trade” premium per unit which is placed in a communitydevelopment fund. The foreign buyer markets canned tunaproducts to end markets.

An overview of the roles and risks of each stakeholder in theproduction process (the shers, trading cooperative, PIC basedcanneries and overseas buyers) is set out in Table 5.

Governance Arrangements The Trading Cooperative, jointly owned by the pole and line vesselowners, is the core component of the pole and line business model.It is responsible for the following functions:• It enters into long run contracts with buyers for pole and line

caught tuna at a specied price, quantity and quality.• It establishes a network of EU registered and compliant pole and

line shing vessels, and enters into contracts for engaging thevessels in shing activity on an ‘as order’ basis.

• It establishes a network of EU registered and compliantprocessing facilities, for example, in PNG and SolomonIslands (in the rst instance) and enters into ‘memorandum ofunderstanding’ (MOU) contracts to engage processing facilitieson an ‘as order’ basis.

• Using the “fair trade” price as the starting point, it negotiates withshers and processors contract rates for shing and processingactivities to be carried out on behalf of the Trading Cooperative.

• It manages the exporting of the nished product to the buyer.

• It manages the contractual payments between/to buyers,canneries and shers.

• It manages appropriate quality control procedures along theproduction chain to ensure that the key values of ‘sustainability’and ‘fair’ sheries are maintained (e.g. implementing processes toensure traceability of the tuna through the production process).

The trading cooperative is staffed by professional, full time andexperienced managers with a high level of business skills. Inthe rst instance, this may require the hiring of expatriate staffin key business management roles and/or work in conjunctionwith one of the major trading companies. But there would be theexpectation that, within a certain timeframe, there would be localsunderstudying them in readiness to take over the helm. The TradingCooperative should also seek to draw on skills of other similarestablishments elsewhere in the world where pole and line sheriesare successfully run including in conjunction with existing pole andline development initiatives run by FFA.

The key advantage of this structure is that the trading cooperativeundertakes the entrepreneurial and managerial activities onbehalf of the shers – allowing shers to focus on shing whilealso providing them with some collective bargaining power visa vis processors and buyers. It also pools the managerial andentrepreneurial activities needed to undertake the marketing forindividual pole and line businesses – thus helping to manage amajor barrier to small-scale sheries development in the region.Over time, the trading cooperative model will build local managerialand business capacity.

Within this model, the shers are responsible for sourcing, owningand operating their shing vessels as a separate business to the

Trading Cooperative.



Making Product:How to Get Product to MarketGetting the canned tuna product to market requires the tradingcooperative to have secured a long-term contract with a foreignbuyer, for example one in the EU or US. If such a contract is unableto be secured, it is unlikely that this business model will work.

The process of delivering on this contract is as follows:• The trading cooperative enters into contracts with owner/

operator of PIC based pole and line vessels to sh on behalf ofthe Cooperative at a pre-agreed price. The pole and line vesseldelivers this to the specied processors for processing.

• The trading cooperative contracts with PIC based processors toprocess tuna to the specic standards required for the buyer.

• The trading cooperative manages the export process of thecanned/other product from the processor to the buyer.

• Depending on the nature of the nal contracts agreed tobetween the buyers, trading cooperative, shers and processors,

payments for shing and processing services are made upon thedelivery of the product.

To reduce administrative costs, the trading cooperative could set upan MOU or equivalent legal contract with processors and shers,setting out the broad framework of the contractual relationshipsbetween the stakeholders. This MOU would set out generalisedconditions include prices paid, terms of contractual payments,terms of shing activity or processing, quality standards, liability,default and any other requirement as needed by stakeholders.

One of the major risks for the trading cooperative is the needto meet minimum standards of quantity and quality in the nalproduct in line with the demands of buyers. To manage thequality issue, the Trading Cooperative will need to limit its use ofprocessors to those that are qualied and registered under theappropriate EU regulations for Hazard Analysis and Critical ControlPoint (HACCP) and for Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated shing(IUU) detection. The PNG and Solomon Island canneries already

meet these requirements.

To manage the risk of an inadequate quantity of sh to process,the trading cooperative can employ two strategies. The rst is todevelop a broad network of eligible pole and line vessels that couldoperate across the Pacic. Some pole and line vessels (particularlythose considered ‘artisanal’) may only wish to sh on a part timebasis, while others may sh full time. Localised environmentalconditions may also affect the size of catches for any single vessel.By developing a broad network of vessels, the trading cooperativecan spread the risks of low catches in any particular location. Forexample, if shing was relatively poor in PNG, then the tradingcooperative could contract for vessels to sh within the SolomonIslands EEZ for delivery to Soltai.

A second strategy would centre on keeping the initial contractswith the buyer and the processor at relatively low levels – towardsthe minimum quantity of acceptable amounts by both. Provisionsin the contracts could allow for scaling up the amount of deliveredproduct should catches be particularly good and the productionprocess operating well. This allows both shers and the canneriesto ‘opt-in/opt-out’ of undertaking contract work for the cooperative– depending on their available capacity and (for artisanal shers) thedesire for additional work. It is envisaged that, for the canneries,contract processing for the Trading Cooperative is a relatively minor

activity that can be used to ll gaps in capacity between processingfor purse seine derived markets.

It is likely that the Trading Cooperative would need to work withsome of the trading companies to facilitate the shipment of thenished product.



Contract and Pricing Strategies The contract between the trading cooperative and the long termbuyer based in the foreign country should aim to follow the fairtrade model and have the following components:• A negotiated price for the nal canned tuna product based

on a ‘fair assessment’ of reasonable returns to both shersand canners. The price would cover the cost of production forshers directly involved in the shery and provide workers in thetrading company, canneries and vessels with a living wage. Astarting point for the sh component of the nal price could be

the Bangkok skipjack tuna price, which an experienced sherindicated is sufcient to cover the costs of pole and line shingunder certain assumptions (Stone, pers. Com.).A small fair tradepremium is paid per unit of product delivered. This additionalpayment is placed in a community development fund that iscontrolled and owned by the Trading Cooperative.

• Buyers are encouraged to pay upfront for the contracts, in orderto supply working capital to the trading cooperative and to thevessels in fullling contracts.

Marketing and Promotional Activities This business model assumes that all marketing activities to nalconsumers are the responsibility of the foreign buyer, not the tradingcooperative. However, the point of difference for the pole and lineproducts is that the tuna is caught in a shery that is economicallyviable, environmentally sustainable and socially responsible.

The Trading Cooperative will need to ensure that the entire processis well documented, that quality management procedures are inplace to actively control the risks within the production chain thatmay undermine sustainability and fair trade values, and that this isappropriately and actively communicated to end users. Potentialrisks that the trading cooperative may have to manage include:• the use of FADs in pole and line shing (to reduce fuel costs

and compensate for localised depletion) leading to by-catch of juvenile bigeye tuna or yellown tuna

• the trading cooperative may contract a ‘fair price’ with the vesselowner, but the owner does not pay a ‘fair price’ wage to thosepeople working the vessel

• the relatively fuel intensive nature of the pole and line shery(due to the number of boats required) may increase the carbonfootprint of the nal product, unless this is carefully factored intothe initial building of vessels , solar and wind technology can beused to increase fuel efciency, or the fuel-intensive large-scaledistant water eets that it replaces can be taken into account

• the processing facilities are not employing workers on a fair basis

• the mixing of pole and line caught tuna with purse seine caughttuna in the processing facility.

Some of these risks can be managed through careful contractspecication between the trading cooperative and the vessel

owners (who, after all, own it) or through establishing a traceabilitysystem using the MSC or the EU IUU regulations as a template.



Financing

Finance for the cooperative could come from a number of sources.It is likely th lude funding for monitoring and ne-tuning of theoperation for an initial period of three to ve years.

Seed money could also come from progressive industry sources(e.g. retailers, brands), potentially via an intermediary that seeks out

environmental and socially responsible options for their customers.Ongoing operations should be nanced from a percentage ofeither sales or prot of the end product, as a condition in thesupply agreement. Alternatively, operation costs could come frommembership fees paid by shers participating in the Cooperative. Toengender a sense of ownership in the enterprise, shers could makea small contribution to the trading cooperative, proportional to thevolume of their catch, for its establishment and ongoing nancing.

Community Development Funds The purpose of community development funds is to provide a

source of nance for projects that will be of benet to the ownersof the trading cooperative– either in their home communities,countries or as a group. Using internal democratic decision makingprocesses, the Cooperative members would identify and selectprojects that support community development objectives. Potentialuses of the money could include business management training,sustainability initiatives, the provision of essential services tocoastal communities, seed funding for micro-credit schemes andother initiatives that support overall capacity for management anddevelopment of the enterprise.



Conclusions and Recommendations

Greenpeace

Although the Western and Central Pacic Ocean is the biggest tunashery in the world, most of the shing has been done by foreignvessels and little benet has accrued to Pacic Island communities.

Tuna sheries access fees have brought some revenue PacicIsland governments and partnerships with international rms withwell-established supply chains have enabled the development ofonshore processing facilities. But this has not meant signicantimprovement in ordinary people’s lives.

Associated with the large-scale industrial model of tuna sheriesis a range of negative environmental impacts including overshing,high fuel consumption, bycatch of threatened and vulnerablespecies and discarding unwanted sh at sea.

Fishing vessels are high tech and beyond the reach of localentrepreneurs to buy, and require large cash reserves to operate.

This makes them unsuitable to build or maintain in Pacic Islandcountries, and makes it difcult for start-up investors from smallisland developing economies to participate in the industry. Thesekinds of shing eets have not employed large numbers of PacicIslanders as crew.

Domestic tuna enterprises, on the other hand, have providedemployment and an injection of cash to communities. Smallerscale tuna shing boats are feasibly built, owned, operated andmaintained within small-island developing coastal states. Havingshing vessels based locally creates multiplier effects in theeconomy through employment and other businesses neededto service and supply their operations. Human resources aredeveloped through working and training in the industry. Smallvessels that make short trips and enable crew to return homefrequently are much more attractive to work on than large industrialvessels that may spend months or even years at sea before goingin to port. Small-scale shing methods employ more people per tonof sh caught.



With the aim of protecting Pacic tunasheries from unsustainable exploitation anddeveloping smaller-scale and locally ownedsheries, Greenpeace makes the followingrecommendations to Pacic Island regionalbodies and governments for achieving thenecessary transformation:

A. Better managing the tuna shery:

• Exclude large-scale and destructive foreign-ownedvessels from national waters or parts thereof with strongconsideration given to reserving inshore and archipelagicareas for sustainable artisanal tuna sheries

• Restrict catches to levels that are environmentallysustainable and economically optimal including through:

- limiting vessel license numbers- requiring vessels to avoid shing in the high seas, which

are harder to regulate and monitor and prone to illegalshing- banning all transhipments at sea

• Take grievances against harmful subsidies in the industrialshing sector such as for boat building and fuel for shingto United Nations Commission on Sustainable Developmentand to the World Trade Organization (WTO)

• Implement all measures to prevent and deter Illegal,Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) shing.

B. Strongly supporting the development of Pacic Islanderinvolvement and investment in tuna sheries:

• Remove impediments to domestic sheries:• address unfavourable cost structures for domestic

sheries businesses through:- taxation reform

- setting sheries access costs higher fordistant water than local vessels

• Improve local participation in opportunities arising from tunaindustries by facilitating training in business management(e.g. in global supply chain businesses) and in shing as acommercial business. This could involve:- targeting school leavers with relevant tertiary education

scholarships- targeting aspiring shing vessel owner-operators

- organising internships in progressive international

seafood trading companies• Develop an independent, transparent and robust system

for regulation, monitoring, consultation and reporting ofenvironmental and social impacts around tuna shing andprocessing, in close consultation with local communities:- develop traceability systems for social and environmental

responsibility standards- work through complexities around businesses operating

in village environments, including customary tenure andmotivations




• Increase local benets from the longline shery by:- introducing mandatory crewing requirements

- investigating commercially viable ways of requiringvessels to ofoad to local processors

- exploring regional collaboration to develop opportunitiesfor locally owned small-scale sheries such as:

- For example, Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA)crossborder investment initiatives

• Ensure that domestic eets meet the highest standardregarding bycatch mitigation and avoidance

• Ensure all measures are taken to ensure foodsafety requirements

• Support the development and marketing effort of local pole& line operators with demonstrated positive impacts onenvironmental sustainability and local communities by:

- showcasing certied sheries via ofcial tradeconferences or tours

- assisting with trading agreements with third parties orexport market countries

C. Especially promoting artisanal sheries:

• Reserve inshore and archipelagic areas for sustainableartisanal sheries only

• Develop a workable system for managing and regulating(licensing, monitoring, regulating, reporting) artisanal

sheries, in close consultation with relevant communities• Develop business plans for artisanal sheries supplying

export markets, using for example the Fair Trade model.Support could include:- exploring models for trade cooperatives to coordinate

marketing of artisanal shing eets, including for Fair Trade

- enabling access to supply chains for high value exportmarkets

• Develop ongoing systems of training for artisanal sheries infood safety and business management, via:- regional organisations, such as the Secretariat of the

Pacic Community (SPC) and Forum Fisheries Agency(FFA)-sponsored training programs on food safety andquality for small-scale sheries

- businesses with interests in the success of artisanalsheries, e.g. seafood export companies hosting trainingsessions for their artisanal suppliers

D. Making a priority of raising awareness at all levelsabout environmentally sustainable and sociallyresponsible tuna sheries in order to build and sustainmarket demand for pole and line, handline and artisanal

tuna sheries.




Appendices

Methodology, Acknowledgementsand People Contacted forChapters 1 – 3

These chapters were undertaken mainly as a desk review ofpreviously written material on the subject of domestication inPacic tuna sheries and the two main case studies. These written

materials were supplemented with information and perspectivesfrom interviews conducted by phone and Skype.

Robert Gillett contributed greatly through helping design the study,suggesting useful interviewees and reports, and commenting on Chapters1-3 in draft form.

Thank you also to interviewees and other people who provided documentsor suggested leads for the study.Banks, Richard. Poisedon Aquatic Resource Management Ltd.Bassford, Andrew. Our Source Consultancy.Brownjohn, Maurice. Commercial Manager, Parties to the Nauru AgreementOfce, Majuro.Du, X.J. Managing Director Golden Ocean Fish Ltd, Suva, and VicePresident of the Fiji Offshore Fisheries Association.

Gillett, Robert. Gillett Preston and Associates, Suva.Holden, Bill. Marine Stewardship Council, Sydney, Australia.Hufet, Charles. Chairman, Pacic Islands Tuna Industry Association.Hughes, Anthony V. Consultant, Western Province, Solomon Islands.Kumar, Radhika. General Manager Solander (Pacic) Ltd, Suva.Ledua, Esaroma. Participant in the former indigenous vessels ownersscheme, Fiji.Peacey, Jonathan. Offshore Fisheries Advisor, Mekem Strong SolomonIslands Fisheries Project, Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources,Honiara.Philipson, Peter. Manager, REI Unit, Pacic Islands Forum Fisheries

Agency, Honiara.Raiwalui, Anare. Principal Fisheries Ofcer, Oceanic Fisheries, Fiji

Government Department of Fisheries, Suva.Ramofaa, Chris. Permanent Secretary, Solomon Islands Ministry ofFisheries and Marine Resources, Honiara.Roberts, Phil. Tri Marine, Singapore.Rodwell, Len. Director, Fisheries Development, Pacic Islands ForumFisheries Agency, Honiara.Southwick, Grahame. Managing Director Fiji Fish Marketing Group Ltd, Suva.Stone, Robert. Forum Fisheries Agency, Honiara.

Teri, John. National Fisheries Development, Noro.Walton, Hugh. DEVFISH Project, Pacic Islands Forum Fisheries Agency,Honiara.Wickham, Cynthia. National Fisheries Development, Noro.



34. Gillett, R. 2007. A Short History of Industrial Fishing in the Pacic Islands. AsiaPacic Fishery Commission, Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations, Regional Ofce for Asia and the Pacic, Bangkok, RAP Publication2007/22. Available: http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/ai001e/ai001e00.htm (viewed29 January 2013).

35. Sainsbury’s, The Magazine. 1997. ‘Fish out of water’, June, 81-83.

36. Barclay, K. and Cartwright, I. 2007. Capturing Wealth from Tuna: Case Studiesfrom Pacic Island Countries, Asia Pacic Press (ANU ePress), Australian NationalUniversity, Canberra. The reasons Maruha withdrew from the joint venture at thistime included social and political instability after a coup in 2000.

37. Government interviews 2008; Honiwala, Edward. 2012. Annual Report to theWestern and Central Pacic Fisheries Commission, Part 1: Information on FisheriesResearch and Statistics, Solomon Islands, Scientic Committee, Eighth RegularSession, 7-15 August, Busan, Republic of Korea.

38. Barclay K. 2009. ‘Fisheries and aquaculture’, in D. Gay (ed) Solomon IslandsDiagnostic Trade Integration Study. United Nations Development Programme,Honiara. Canning tuna involves two processes: ‘loining’ (butchering sh, boilingthem, cleaning skin and bones and dark meat from the loins), which must be doneby hand; and canning (putting meat and other ingredients into cans, sealing them,and cooking the cans), which can be mechanised. The USA and the EU havedomestic canning industries that are protected by tariffs on imports of cannedsh, but even so the high costs of labour in these locations means they are notcompetitive, so the practice has emerged of loining in a country with cheap labourand then nishing off the canning in highly mechanised factories in the EU andUSA.

39. Undercurrent News. 2012. Tri Marine-Owned Factory to Ramp Up Production.22 August. Available: http://www.undercurrentnews.com/2012/08/22/tri-marine-owned-cannery-to-ramp-up-production/#.UIR10IXca9Y (viewed 22 October2012); Honiwala, Edward. 2012. Annual Report to the Western and Central PacicFisheries Commission, Part 1: Information on Fisheries Research and Statistics,Solomon Islands, Scientic Committee, Eighth Regular Session, 7-15 August,Busan, Republic of Korea.

40. The EU has a 24% tariff on imports of processed sh, which does not apply toSolomon Islands product. In the past Solomon Islands product was exempt underthe Lome and Cotonou arrangements. More recently they have been exempt underthe Generalised System of Preferences Everything But Arms Arrangement for LeastDeveloped Countries. For details on the international trade regime as it affectstuna production in the Pacic see Campling, Liam, Havice, Elizabeth, Ram-Bidesi,

Vina and Grynberg, Roman. 2007. ‘Pacic Islands Countries, The Global TunaIndustry and the International Trade Regime - A Guidebook.’ DEVFISH Project,Pacic Islands Forum Fisheries Agency, Honiara. There have been discussionsabout phasing out these preferential trade arrangements since the World TradeOrganization in the 1990s stepped up attempts to roll back tariffs globally. Industryinterviewees note that it is possible the trade preferences will disappear withinve to ten years, but they are continuing to invest in countries such as SolomonIslands, Papua New Guinea and Fiji on the basis of the tariff free arrangements.

41. Costs of production that are higher in Solomon Islands than in competitor locationsinclude: freight costs, costs related to lack of government infrastructure (roads,water supplies, etc), expensive and unreliable power, high fuel costs, taxationsystem taxing inputs, lack of competitive support services. For further details oncosts and on the tariff exemption for EU exports see Barclay K. 2009. ‘Fisheriesand aquaculture’, in D. Gay (Ed) Solomon Islands Diagnostic Trade IntegrationStudy. United Nations Development Programme, Honiara.

42. Interview and email communication, Phil Roberts, October 2012, January 2013.

43. Currently distant water eets pay around USD5,000 per Vessel Day (day of shing),as well as annual payments of USD1,000 and USD2,000 towards observerprogram administration and Monitoring Control and Surveillance (MCS) services

respectively. According to the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources, currentlicense fees for locally registered purse seine vessels are (annually) SDB25,000 plusUSD200 for observer administration, and no MCS fee.

44. Parris, H. 2011. Pacic Based Pole and Line Fishery: A Draft Business Model.Report prepared for Greenpeace Australia-Pacic, p. 21. For NFD the pole andline shery is protable in conjunction with its purse seine shery; it would not beprotable on its own.

45. Parris, H. 2011. Pacic Based Pole and Line Fishery: A Draft Business Model.Report prepared for Greenpeace Australia-Pacic.

46. A brief survey of UK online shopping sites Planet Organic, Tesco and Sainsbury’sin February 2013 showed prices for 185gm tins of tuna chunks in brine not labeledas pole and line caught were mostly in the range £0.75 to £1.19, with one at £1.99.

Tins of tuna chunks in brine (185gm) labeled as pole and line-caught were all priced

from £1.85 to £1.99. The brands included in this survey were Fish4Ever, JohnWest, Princes, and the home brands of Tesco and Sainsbury’s.

47. Barclay, K. 2008, A Japanese Joint Venture in the Pacic, Routledge, Oxon.

48. Gillett, R. and Manieva, J. 2010. Development of a Strategy for IncreasingEmployment of PNA Nationals On Fishing Vessels Operating in PNA Waters. Areport prepared for The World Bank and the PNA Ofce; McCoy, Mike A. 2010.Enhancing Employment Opportunities for Pacic Islanders Aboard Foreign Fishing

Vessels. Report prepared for the Pacic Islands Forum Fisheries Agency, Honiara.;Barclay, K. and Cartwright, I. 2007. Capturing Wealth from Tuna: Case Studiesfrom Pacic Island Countries, Asia Pacic Press (ANU ePress), Australian NationalUniversity, Canberra; Barclay, K. 2012. ‘Social Impact’, in Blomeyer & Sanz,

Application of the System of Derogation to the Rules of Origin of Fisheries Productsin Papua New Guinea and Fiji. Directorate-General for Internal Policies, PolicyDepartment B: Structural and Cohesion Policies, Fisheries. Report prepared for theEuropean Parliament’s Committee on Fisheries.

49. Barclay, K. 2008. A Japanese Joint Venture in the Pacic, Routledge, Oxon.

50. Allain, Marc. 2010. Lessons Learned from the Domestication Process of theCanadian Cold Water Shrimp Fishery, a Case Study. Draft report submitted toGreenpeace International.

51. Curry, G. and Koczberski, G. In press. ‘Development implications of theengagement with capitalism: improving the social returns of development’, inMcCormack, F. and Barclay, K. Engaging With Capitalism: Cases from Oceania,Emerald, London.

52. Barclay, K. and Kinch, J. In press. ‘Local Capitalism and Sustainability in CoastalFisheries: Cases from Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands’, in McCormack, F.and Barclay, K. Engaging With Capitalism: Cases from Oceania, Emerald, London.

53. Barclay, K. 2008, A Japanese Joint Venture in the Pacic, Routledge, Oxon; BarclayK. 2009. ‘Fisheries and aquaculture’, in D. Gay (ed) Solomon Islands Diagnostic

Trade Integration Study. United Nations Development Programme, Honiara.

54. Chuenpagdee, R., Liguori, L., Palomares, M. and Pauly, D. 2006. ‘Bottom-up,Global Estimates of Small-Scale Marine Fisheries Catches’, Fisheries CentreResearch Reports 14(8).

55. Mohamed, S. 2007. A Bioeconomic Analysis of Maldivian Skipjack Tuna Fishery.Masters Thesis in International Fisheries Management, University of Tromso.

56. Mohamed, S. 2007. A Bioeconomic Analysis of Maldivian Skipjack Tuna Fishery.Masters Thesis in International Fisheries Management, University of Tromso; RiyazJauharee, A. and Shiham Adam, M. 2012. The evolving Maldivian tuna sheryand its increasing dependence on the anchored FADs. Report from the MarineResearch Centre, Ministry of Fisheries and Agriculture, Maldives to the IndianOcean Tuna Commission, IOTC-2012-WPTT14-10.

57. Parris, H. 2011. Pacic Based Pole and Line Fishery: A Draft Business Model.Report prepared for Greenpeace Australia-Pacic; Parris, H. 2012. Tuna LedDevelopment in the Pacic: A Business Model for Fair Trade Tuna from the PacicIslands? Presentation to the Asian Seafood Exposition, Hong Kong Convention andExhibition Centre, 3-5 September; interview Hannah Parris 2013.

58. Parris, H. 2012. Tuna Led Development in the Pacic: A Business Model for Fair Trade Tuna from the Pacic Islands? Presentation to the Asian Seafood Exposition,Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, 3-5 September; interview HannahParris 2013.



59. Interviews (phone) Hannah Parris; Andrew Bassford, January 2013.

60. Gillett, R. 2007. A Short History of Industrial Fishing in the Pacic Islands. AsiaPacic Fishery Commission, Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations, Regional Ofce for Asia and the Pacic, Bangkok, RAP Publication2007/22. Available: http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/ai001e/ai001e00.htm (viewed29 January 2013).

61. McCoy, M. and Gillett, R. 2005. Tuna Longlining by China in the Pacic Islands: ADescription and Considerations for Increasing Benets to FFA Member Countries.Report prepared for the Pacic Islands Forum Fisheries Agency, Honiara.

62. Tavaga, Netani. 2012. Annual Report to the Western and Central Pacic FisheriesCommission, Part 1: Information on Fisheries Research and Statistics, Fiji, ScienticCommittee, Eighth Regular Session, 7-15 August, Busan, Republic of Korea.

63. Normally frozen tuna discolors and is not suitable for use as sashimi, but if it isfrozen to minus60 degrees Celsius, it retains its colour and texture and remainspreserved at this quality for some years, so can be shipped and stored.

64. Interview (phone) X.J. Du, October 2012.

65. PITIA. 2012. Southern Albacore Longline Fishery – Issues Paper on Economic Aspects. Pacic Islands Tuna Industry Association. Available http://www.pitia.org/ pitia-publications.html (viewed 22 October 2012); Suzuki, Ziro. No date. Pacic

Albacore Issue. Rapid Increase in Fishing Capacity of Small-Scale Tuna LonglineFleet in the South Pacic. A Verication of PITIA Statement. Organization for thePromotion of Responsible Tuna Fisheries. Available http://oprt.or.jp/eng/2012/03/ pacic-albacore-issue/ (viewed 22 October 2012). For further details on declinesin bigeye and yellown stocks see the meeting papers of the Standing Committeeon Tuna and Billsh (http://spc.int/OceanFish/Html/SCTB/index.htm) until 2004,

and from 2005 meetings of the Western and Central Pacic Fisheries Commission(http://www.wcpfc.int/meetings/all).

66. Industry interviews 2012.

67. Gillett, R. 2003. Domestic Tuna Industry Development in the Pacic Islands: TheCurrent Situation and Considerations for Future Development Assistance. PacicIslands Forum Fisheries Agency, Honiara; Barclay, K. and Cartwright, I. 2007.Capturing Wealth from Tuna: Case Studies from Pacic Island Countries, AsiaPacic Press (ANU ePress), Australian National University, Canberra.

68. The same can be said of Taiwanese investors who also make up a signicantportion of the industry.

69. Sumaila, U.R., Khan, A.J., Dyck, A., Watson, R., Munro, G., Tydemers, P, Pauly,D. 2010. ‘A Bottom-Up Re-Estimation of Global Fisheries Subsidies’, Journal ofBioeconomics 12: 201-225.

70. Banks, R., Short, K. and Tuqiri, S. 2012. South West Pacic Longline Caught Albacore. Going, Going, Gone? A Policy Brief prepared for WWF. Available http://

www.wwfpacic.org.fj/media/lady_daunivonu/ (viewed 22 October 2012).71. Industry interviews 2012; PITIA. 2012. Southern Albacore Longline Fishery – Issues

Paper on Economic Aspects. Pacic Islands Tuna Industry Association. Availablehttp://www.pitia.org/pitia-publications.html (viewed 22 October 2012).

72. Interview (email) Anare Raiwalui, October 2012.

73. Industry interviews 2012. This echoes the ndings of a study of longlinedevelopment options in the Pacic concluding that where national eets arenot thriving, foreign investment in the catching sector is desirable to boost thesector and thus maximise the opportunities for onshore processing. Philipson,Peter W. 2006, An Assessment of Development Options in the Longline Fishery.Development of Tuna Fisheries in the Pacic APC Countries (DEVFISH) Project.

74. The 2009 industry interviews were conducted by postdoctoral fellow Dr HenryChen, who was at that time working with the author.

75. Interview (phone) Bill Holden, October 2012.

76. Industry interviews 2005; 2012.

77. Interviews 2012.

78. Allain, Marc. 2010. Lessons Learned from the Domestication Process of theCanadian Cold Water Shrimp Fishery, a Case Study. Draft report submitted toGreenpeace International.

79. Gillett, R. and Manieva, J. 2010. Development of a Strategy for IncreasingEmployment of PNA Nationals On Fishing Vessels Operating in PNA Waters. Areport prepared for The World Bank and the PNA Ofce; McCoy, Mike A. 2010.Enhancing Employment Opportunities for Pacic Islanders Aboard Foreign Fishing

Vessels. Report prepared for the Pacic Islands Forum Fisheries Agency, Honiara.

80. PITIA. 2011. Challenges to Domestic Tuna Industry Development in the Pacicand its International Competitiveness. Pacic Islands Tuna Industry Association.

Available http://www.pitia.org/pitia-publications.html (viewed 22 October 2012).81. PITIA. 2012. Southern Albacore Longline Fishery – Issues Paper on Economic

Aspects. Pacic Islands Tuna Industry Association. Available http://www.pitia.org/ pitia-publications.html (viewed 22 October 2012).

82. Industry and government interviews 2012.

83. Hand, T. 1999. A Review of Fisheries Taxation & Licensing In the Solomon Islands.Report prepared for the Asian Development Bank.

84. Peter Philipson, ‘Lessons Learned –A Review Of Successes And Failures In Tuna

85. Fisheries Development In The Pacic Islands’ (Report to FFA, 2011).Fiji currently does not comply with the IUU regulation requirements.



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