State of Tuna Report 2015 – Special Feature
TUNA owning islands of the Pacific still want to see increasing returns from their fishery by increasing the value of tuna rather than volume of tuna fished or sold to distant water fishing nations.Strategies of achieving this was discussed at great lengths at the July 11th meeting of Pacific Fisheries Ministers Meeting that Tuvalu hosted in its capital Funafuti under the support of the Pacific Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA).
More job creation initiatives, regional cost sharing ideas, canvassing the support of Pacific leaders and tuna management measures also ranked high in the number of issues Ministers and their officials discussed during their three day annual conference. “It is vital that the Pacific work on ways to achieve more value from the amount of fish caught, rather than to rely on simply catching more,” the FFA told this magazine at the end of the meeting.
“A number of strategic avenues to achieve this will become more easily available with high-level support for the Future of Fisheries Roadmap. “These include options such as securing better access to the world’s key tuna markets and promoting higher value products.
“Realigning key fisheries management measures so that FFA members have greater control over the management and harvest of resources is another option before leaders that adds value to members by reducing the prevalence of currently unrestricted fishing on the high seas.“In addition, there is the universal challenge for this region– creating economies of scale to reduce the comparative disadvantages that Pacific Island Countries currently face, such as the tyranny of distance to markets and high energy costs.
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