Industry sees huge last quarter
DESPITE industry complaints that fishing has been on the wane, the Parties to the Nauru Agreement Office reported that effort in PNA waters in the last quarter of 2016 was the highest quarterly achievement in 30 months. Operators used 3586 days in the final quarter of 2016, up from 2014’s last quarter of 3292. Effort is the number of tonnes or number of actual fish caught over a day. Taking a longer view, effort (fishing) has reduced since 2011 when the last quarter days were around 1000 metric tonnes more, standing at 4516.
However, there was no change to the industry practice of the importance of the last quarter, with most days used over the past six years generally occurring in this end-year rush. Meanwhile, the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission Secretariat reported that Taiwan, China and the US had all notified the WCPFC they had reached 90 per cent of their catch limit for 2016. Under the 2015 Conservation and Management Measure, fishing nations are upposed to update the Commission monthly of their catch…
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