SPC ACTIVITIEScoastfish.spc.int/News/Fish_News/80_81/Fish_News_80_81.pdfSPC Fisheries Newsletter #80/81 — January/March ‘97 — April/June ‘97 3 SPC ACTIVITIES continue fishing

SPC Fisheries Newsletter #80/81 — January/March ‘97 — April/June ‘97

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NUMBER 80/81JANUARY — MARCH 1997

APRIL—JUNE 1997

Newsletter

IN THIS ISSUE

SPC ACTIVITIES Page 2

NEWS FROM IN AND AROUND THE REGION Page 22

PACIFIC ISLAND COUNTRIES Page 30AND THE AQUARIUM MARKETby V. Dufour

South Pacific CommissionPrepared by the Information Section of the Marine Resources Division

Printed with financial assistance from the Government of France

Ken Harada (Sydney Fish Market) demonstratingthe on-board handling of sashimi tuna


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SPC ACTIVITIES

RESOURCE ASSESSMENT SECTION

The main field project for theResource Assessment Sectionduring the first quarter of 1997was the ICFMaP (IntegratedCoastal Fisheries ManagementProject) Aitutaki lagoon fisherymanagement sub-project, PhaseII. This extended the survey toinvertebrate fisheries and dis-cussed fisheries managementoptions with the Island Counciland people in the community.

The draft report of this workwas submitted before depar-ture from the Cook Islands inthe first week of February, andwill be consolidated with thedraft reports of previous workinto a final report before the endof the ICFMaP project.

This final document, after con-sultation with sub-project col-laborators, particularly theCook Islands Ministry of Ma-rine Resources, will be pub-lished for the benefit of otherSPC member countries and ter-ritories.

We are currently searching forappropriate sources of fundingto finance the most important ofthe management measures be-ing implemented by the IslandCouncil, particularly the gillnetmeasures, but also the addi-tional survey work that will berequired to provide an accuratebaseline on the current status offish and invertebrates in thenew marine reserve areas.

Some additional fieldwork un-der the ICFMaP Macuata gillnetfishery management sub-projectalso took place during the quar-ter, with financial support fromthe FAO Regional AquacultureDevelopment Project.

It was designed to investigatethe possibilities of developingalternative income-generatingopportunities from coastal fish-eries in the area through thepotential supply of milkfish fryto grow-out facilities, to providelive bait for the Fiji small-scaletuna longline fishery.

The last fieldwork part of theMacuata gillnet fishery man-agement sub-project will be theproduction of a video that illus-trates the benefits that weregained in this area.

These included the local initia-tive to restrict the use of gillnets,coupled with the fishermen’s(and women’s) initiative to im-prove post-harvest utilisationin the remaining handline fish-ery (particularly long-distancemarketing), and thus to actuallyimprove prospects for both sus-tainability and overall income.

Masterfisherman, Steve Beverlywas in Rarotonga, Cook Islandsfrom 26 January to the end ofMarch assisting the fledglingtuna longline fleet. When theMasterfisherman first visitedRarotonga (one week in Octo-ber 1996) there were three boatsin the fleet and some fish werebeing exported to foreign mar-kets (Japan, Hawaii, and NewZealand).

However, upon his return inJanuary he found that the larg-est of the vessels, F/V EdnaKate, had left for the broadbillswordfish fishery in Australia.The remaining vessels, F/V

CAPTURE SECTION

Masterfisherman assignment commences in the Cook Islands

Farquest and F/V Peka-Annewere not catching enough fishto justify exports, so all freshfish exporting had ceased byNovember 1996.

F/V Peka-Anne is small by in-dustry standards (8.8 m) andcould not become a serious con-tender in the sashimi exporttrade. F/V Peka-Anne does havepotential, however, for supply-ing fish to the domestic marketsin Rarotonga and could possi-bly piggyback onto an exportoperation if that ever starts upagain. Brent Fisher, owner/op-erator of F/V Peka-Anne, sellshis fish either whole or proc-

essed into loins and chunks tolocal restaurants. The main catchof F/V Peka-Anne is yellowfintuna, albacore tuna, bigeyetuna, blue marlin, wahoo, andthe occasional broadbill sword-fish. The Masterfishermanmade a total of eight longlinesets from F/V Peka-Anne, set-ting approximately 200–220hooks each time in baskets of 12hooks each. A total of 1,740hooks were set and 685 kg of allspecies were caught, includingten yellowfin tuna.

Unfortunately the longline reelbroke down during hauling onthe last longline trip. In order to


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continue fishing for the balanceof the Masterfisherman’s timewith F/V Peka-Anne, three ver-tical longlines were made upwith tarred 6.4 mm Kuralon.

Each vertical longline had 15branchlines made from braided1.5 mm monofilament. Twopalu ahi lines were also madeup. Fishing continued, but closerto shore (around the FADs atBlack Rock and Ngatangiia).

Vertical longline and palu ahifishing were not nearly as suc-cessful as horizontal longlinefishing on F/V Peka-Anne. Sixfishing trips were made, settingtwo or three vertical longlineseach time. Palu ahi fishing wasdone near the FADs while thevertical longlines soaked. Onlyfour yellowfin and one albacorewere caught during these sixtrips. Two of the yellowfin werecaught on the palu ahi lines.(F/V Peka-Anne was visited inFisheries Newsletter #79.)

The main vessel that the Mas-terfisherman was assisting inRarotonga was SeaQuest Ltd’sF/V Farquest. SeaQuest Ltd is awholly owned local seafoodand fishing company ownedand operated by the husband/wife team of Lucky andAdrienne Matapuku.

Besides owning SeaQuest,Lucky Matapuku is in a jointventure with several otherCook Islanders (Michael Burns,Tuaine Rata, Royden Mitchelland Rima Tuarae) called CookIslands Sealords Ltd (Sealords).Sealords is in a further jointventure with a New Zealandcompany.

Sealords and Tulagi Group areeach 50 per cent shareholders inCook Islands Seafoods Ltd,which runs a packing houseand retail fish shop oppositeAvatiu Harbour in Rarotonga.

The Cook Islands Seafoods Ltdpartnership is for five years,during which time Sealords willbe responsible for obtainingfishing licences, export permits,fuel, bait, and other agent func-tions, while Tulagi Group willbring in vessels either of theirown or under charter. This ar-rangement has been going onsince March 1994 with limitedsuccess.

All of the boats brought in byTulagi (F/V Southern Progressand F/V Kona Wind, whichfished in 1994–95, and F/VSuzanne M and F/V Edna Kate,which fished in 1996) have leftCook Islands to fish elsewhereand Cook Islands Seafoods Ltdis being supported solely bySeaQuest and the catches oftheir vessel, F/V Farquest.

There have been no exports byCook Islands Seafoods Ltdsince November 1996 so theyhave been busy selling fish onthe domestic market, eitherwhole or processed into loins.Besides wholesaling to restau-rants and grocery stores, CookIslands Seafoods Ltd has itsown retail fish shop (in the samebuilding as the packhouse),where local customers can buyfresh loins and steaks of yellow-fin tuna, bigeye tuna, albacoretuna, marlin, mahi mahi, broad-bill swordfish, and wahoo. Asit is, the packhouse and retailshop are operating under seri-ous cash-flow problems.

In the near future theMatapukus expect more boatsto arrive from New Zealandand business may pick up. The

The F/V FarQuest


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season for good tuna catches isfrom June to August and then thebroadbill swordfish season be-gins in September. If things goas planned, SeaQuest Ltd maybe in the market for a new boat.

In the meantime, however, theMatapukus were in need of tech-nical assistance with F/V Farquest.The vessel was not catchingenough fish, especially tunas, tokeep the operation viable.

The Matapukus and Brent Fishersought assistance from CookIslands Ministry of Marine Re-sources which, in turn, askedthe South Pacific Commission forhelp in the form of a Masterfish-erman attachment to Cook Is-lands for a three-month period.

In October 1996 Masterfisher-man, Steve Beverly visitedRarotonga and together withthe Ministry of Marine ResourcesSecretary, Ray Newnham andFisheries Consultant, ColinBrown, submitted a draft pro-posal to the Forum Fisheries

Agency seeking funding for aproject to assist the longlinefleet.

Subsequently, funding was ap-proved through UNDP’s jointSPC/FFA Regional FisheriesSupport and National CapacityBuilding Programme. Thebudget of US$40,000 called forUS$10,000 to be spent on newfishing gear, US$10,000 onsanma bait, and the balance onother expenses.

When the Masterfisherman ar-rived in Rarotonga in January itbecame immediately obviouswhy SeaQuest Ltd was havingtroubles with F/V Farquest (hehad not had a chance to viewthe vessel during his brief visitin October 1996).

F/V Farquest is a 27-year oldformer cray fishing boat fromChatham Islands in New Zea-land. She is made from steel andis 54.5 ft (16.8 m) long with abeam of 14.9 ft (4.58 m), and adraft of just 7 ft (2.1 m). The fish

hold will hold 7 t of fish in refrig-erated sea water (RSW) but willonly hold about 2 t of iced fish.

Upon delivery to Rarotonga inApril 1996, F/V Farquest had aworking RSW system but it hassince been removed and all fishare iced. The fuel tanks holdonly 9,000 l of fuel and the freshwater tank only 1,200 l. Most ofthe below-deck space that couldbe fish hold is taken up with avery roomy but unnecessarycrew’s quarters (this should beabove deck).

The vessel came with a NewZealand-made monofilamentlongline reel with 40 km of line,800 branchlines and all of theother gear to go with the fish-ing system.

F/V Farquest was found to be afairly well maintained and sea-worthy vessel. All of the safetygear was current and in goodcondition. Lucky and Adrienneand the crew of F/V Farquestwere working hard, against dif-

Hauling longline on F/V FarQuest


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SPC ACTIVITIES

ficult odds, to make F/VFarquest a viable longline vessel.

The main problem with F/VFarquest, however, is not that itis not able to catch fish, but ratherthat it does not have the rangeor the fish-holding capacity tomake it a viable commerciallongline vessel in the South Pa-cific (see SPC Fisheries Newslet-ter #79, pp. 22–35). The best fish-ing grounds in Cook Islands arein the north above 10°S, butF/V Farquest is unable to ven-ture out of sight of Rarotonga—the small fish hold only holdsenough ice for two to three sets.

Notwithstanding these difficul-ties the Masterfisherman madean attempt to improve the situ-ation for SeaQuest Ltd. First, thefishing gear was modifiedsomewhat. F/V Farquest hadbeen using 5–7 fa (10 to 14 m)floatlines all made from floatingpolypropylene rope.

The Masterfisherman, with thehelp of MMR staff, made up ad-ditional floatlines using 15 fa(30 m) lengths of 6.4 mm tarredKuralon (sinking rope). Newbranchlines were also made up:200 2.0 mm monofilament 6 fa(12 m) branchlines and 2003.0 mm tarred red polyester 5 fa(10 m) branchlines 0.5 m of1.0 mm stainless steel leader wireand a 60 g leaded swivel. Allbranchlines had 3.6 Japan tunahooks with ring.

F/V Farquest had a line-setter butit was not functioning and wasin need of spare parts (none avail-able in Rarotonga). Formerlythe crew had been setting bas-kets of just 15 hooks, each usingthe short, floating floatlines andpartly decomposed squid bait(Cook Islands Seafoods Ltdfreezer broke down for severalweeks in late 1996). The shortfloating rope float-lines wouldtend to keep the mainline near

the surface. With the new gearand new bait the sets werechanged so that each basket had20 hooks and the longerKuralon floatlines were used onabout half the set.

The results of the brief fishingtrials were not conclusive (onlysix trips were made), but on thetrip of 6 March 1,000 hookswere set using all sanma bait.Half of the set used the old float-lines and half used the new,longer Kuralon floatlines.

Over 500 kg of fish were caughton this set, including a 75 kgbigeye tuna, five yellowfintuna, and five blue marlin. Allbut one of the fish was caughton the baskets using the new,longer floatlines. It was obviousthat F/V Farquest had been fish-ing too shallow. This was re-flected in their past catches,which often consisted of mostlyby-catch species and not thetarget species of yellowfin tunaand bigeye tuna.

One other thing that was cor-rected by the Masterfishermanon F/V Farquest was the waythat the hydraulic valve was setup to operate the reel. The formerowners in New Zealand hadinstalled a solenoid by-pass onthe valve that was controlled bya switch on deck. The actualcontrol valve (hydraulic) wasbelow the rail and out of reachof the man operating the reel.

This created a dangerous situa-tion and made hauling veryinconvenient for the operator.The Masterfisherman removedthe solenoid valve and shiftedthe hydraulic valve to a higherposition. The result was a muchsmoother, safer operation dur-ing hauling.

Instructions were also given tothe crew in setting strategies toenhance catch, and in proper

on-board handling and icing offish.

However, the small amount ofice taken on each trip made itdifficult even for a trained fish-erman to ice the fish properly.

Another point which was adefinite problem at SeaQuestLtd was that F/V Farquest didnot have a captain. The crewwere each given separate areasof responsibility, but no oneperson was actually in charge ofthe vessel’s operation and offishing operations.

On the first trip taken by theMasterfisherman (11 February),enough bait was taken for fivesets, but only enough ice for oneset, and the freshwater tank wasnot topped off. F/V Farquest hadto return to port after just oneset and water had to be strictlyrationed while the boat was atsea. As there was no captain,nobody was accountable.

Aside from problems with fish-ing, because of her age and situ-ation, F/V Farquest was plaguedby maintenance problems. Forexample, the 12 VDC systemnever worked properly and asa result the autopilot was usu-ally out; the fish hold had to behand-bailed as the 12 VDC pumpwas out; on one trip a hydrau-lic line burst and the boat hadno spares, so had to return toport and leave the line in thewater; the SSB radio was notworking (F/V Farquest was sub-sequently not able to respond toa Mayday call on 22 February);and the line-setter did not workso the line could not be set deep.

Unfortunately, even if all of themanagement, fishing, andmaintenance problems beingexperienced by SeaQuest Ltdcould somehow be resolved,F/V Farquest will never be a vi-able commercial longline vessel


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in the sashimi export trade be-cause of its limited capabilities.

The Masterfisherman’s timemight be better spent in the

future if he is called upon togive advice before a vessel andgear are purchased and not af-ter costly mistakes have beenmade. If SeaQuest Ltd does

purchase or charter anotherlongline vessel, it is hoped thatit will call upon the South Pa-cific Commission for advice.

Activities in Noumea have fo-cused on the backlog of out-standing reports. The FisheriesDevelopment Adviser, LindsayChapman, and Project Assist-ant, Marie-Ange Roberts, havebeen working on two types ofreports, published and unpub-lished.

Published reports will be com-pleted for all country assign-ments that have been under-taken since 1992. The first ofthese Capture Section Reports,‘Tuna Fisheries Development,East New Britain, Papua NewGuinea’, was published anddistributed in early April. Sev-eral other reports in this pub-lished series have been pro-gressed and should be printedand distributed in the nextquarter.

Unpublished reports, as agreedto by the Commission, will al-low the backlog of Deep SeaFisheries Development Projectcountry reports, with their valu-able information, to be releasedinto the public arena withoutgoing through the detailed SPCpublication process. This willenable valuable information tobe released to member coun-tries and territories.

These reports will be producedto a high technical standard bythe Capture Section, and willstill require clearance from in-dividual countries before theirrelease. Only limited numberswill be produced and distrib-uted. The first two reports in theunpublished series should bereleased in the next quarter.

Activities at headquarters

The good news for the CaptureSection is that its funding pro-posal to AusAID for a secondMasterfisherman position hasbeen accepted and funded fora three-year period. This fund-ing includes the employment of

a Project Assistant for the sameperiod, and most of the opera-tional costs for the Masterfish-erman. A separate advertise-ment for the Masterfishermanposition is included in thisNewsletter (see below).

RECRUITMENT OF A SECOND MASTERFISHERMAN

The Capture section of the South Pacific Commission is seekingto employ a qualified Masterfisherman for three years. The suc-cessful applicant will be required to have experience in: all aspectsof tuna longline fishing operations; fish aggregating device (FAD)site surveying, construction and deployment procedures; fishingmethods associated with FADs; report writing; and accurate datacollection and record keeping. The successful applicant will alsorequire good liaison skills and have the ability to work with a widerange of people from different cultures and with different educa-tional backgrounds.

Qualifications for this position include: five years professional ex-perience in a commercial capture fishery (preferably in the SouthPacific); demonstrated ability in appropriate fish handling and icingprocedures for sashimi-grade fish; report-writing and record-keep-ing skills; a recognised seagoing certificate for offshore fishingoperations would be an advantage; and fluency in English (a knowl-edge of French would be an advantage).

This position is a permanent field position with a salary of 398,837CFP per month (100 CFP = approx US$ 1.00) plus free housingin the country of assignment. An establishment grant of 40,000CFP will be paid for each assignment over one month’s duration.It is anticipated that 2–4 assignments would be conducted eachyear. Leave is accrued at 2.5 working days per month with 30sick days per year. Six per cent of salary will be paid into the Com-mission’s Provident Fund, with a matching contribution by theCommission, and 1.5 per cent of salary is deducted for medicalcover. Moving expenses will be covered for personal effects up to150 kg for a single person, and up to 250 kg for a couple, to eachassignment station. Project equipment will be additional to theappointee’s personal effects.

For more information and a copy of the full position specifica-tions, qualifications and terms and conditions, please contact theFisheries Development Adviser, Lindsay Chapman on, phone 687260168, fax 687 263818 or e-mail <[email protected]>, or atthe Commission’s address.

APPLICATIONS CLOSE 30 AUGUST 1997.


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TRAINING SECTION

Developing pre-sea fishing and safety training

In March this year the FisheriesTraining Section started work-ing with the Vanuatu FisheriesTraining Centre in Santo andthe Vanuatu Fishermen’s Asso-ciation to develop a course out-line, training materials and les-son plans for a course whichwould help first-time Ni-Vanuatu fishermen get a job onTaiwanese longliners.

The president of the VanuatuFisherman’s Association, KaloranoKalo, was quite sure on whatwas needed. This was a short,two-week training course on allaspects of safety, as the recordof injury and death on theseboats was bad. He indicated itshould be non-academic in na-ture, as many of the participantsmight be unable to read.

Further enquiries of the Taiwan-ese employers and their localrepresentatives, the South Pa-cific Fishing Company, showedthat recruitment of new Ni-Vanuatu crews was falling, be-cause some inappropriatechoices were giving the wrongmessage about the suitabil-ity of Ni-Vanuatu crew.In view of this it was

agreed that a secondary objec-tive of the course would be toact as a screening process thatmight weed out those whowere unsuitable for the rigoursof life on an oceanic longliner.

All aspects of the course havenow been completed; 20 videoscovering safety, fire fightingand longlining have been col-lected; lesson plans for each ses-sion have been written along,with visual aids and photo-graphs; and the first course willbe run in July–August this yearwith assistance from a tutor fromthe New Zealand School of Fish-eries. The course will be live-in,with the participants followinga continuous, intensive workprogramme over 14 days.

Little emphasis will be given towritten learning or exercises.Learning will be accomplishedthrough spoken explanationsaccompanied by drawings, dia-grams and hands-on practice.

Videos will be used whereverpossible. Evaluation will bemade by the continuous use ofcheck-lists which will monitoreach participant’s attitude andcompetency during each dailylesson throughout the course.

This regime will help to meetthe course objectives, which are:

• to give participants basicsafety skills and fishingknowledge that will makethem more capable of safelyundertaking a career on-board a foreign fishing ves-sel; and

• to create a working envi-ronment and ethic whichwill allow tutors to identifythose participants who donot have either the workethic or the personality forlife on board.

Enquiries around the regionindicated that several countries,especially Papua New Guineaand the Federated States ofMicronesia, are interested in asimilar course as a first step foryouths entering life at sea.

The second meeting of the As-sociation of Pacific Island Mari-time Training Institutions andMaritime Authorities, held inSuva last April, recommendedthat attendance at a pre-seasafety programme, incorporat-ing survival, first aid, basic firefighting and occupational safetyand health, be made a statutoryrequirement for all fishermenon Pacific Island vessels.

The Fisheries Training Sectionendorses this recommendationand believes that the coursematerials which have been de-veloped for Vanuatu will be


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suitable as a basic course for mostPacific Island countries and ter-ritories, with the fishing con-tents (the Taiwanese longliningmethods in the case of Vanuatu)changed where necessary toreflect the type of fishing theparticular students will under-take on course completion.

To better explain the methodol-ogy and content of the course,a short non-professional videowill be made during the opera-tion of the Vanuatu course inJuly. This will be circulated toall interested countries and ter-ritories along with a complete

description of the teaching aidsand course outline. The Train-ing Section will work with thosewhich decide that this courseand materials are appropriate totheir fishery.

This, along with the safety ma-terials already developed, willgive them all that is needed foroperating their own in-countrypre-sea course. If it is wished,and finances permitting, theassistance of a tutor can be sup-plied for the first course.

The distribution of these materi-als, along with the course notes

for the Pacific Island QualifiedFishing Deck-hand Course, willgive institutions around thePacific the capability of runningthose lower-level courses whichmay be required for manningfishing vessels. The South Pa-cific Commission has been fi-nancially assisted in this projectby the Government of the Re-public of China/Taiwan.

National workshops on sashimi-tuna handling in Western Samoa

The development of a tunalongline industry in WesternSamoa started early in 1996when a few fishermen installeda hand-driven longline reel ontheir 28-footer Alia catamaran.Today, more than one hundredAlia catamarans are longliningin Western Samoa’s EEZ. Mostof these boats operate from thecapital, Apia, doing daily tripsup to 45 miles off-shore. Theyuse a monofilament longlineand deploy up to 550 hooks perset.

In 1996, 1,200 tons of albacoretuna (Thunnus alalunga) wereexported frozen to canneries inAmerican Samoa. Exports ofchilled tunas (yellowfin andbigeye) were also started lastyear, mainly to the sashimimarkets of the United States.

The main bottleneck to the fu-ture development of this youngtuna fishing industry is the poorquality of the landed catches.

An alia catamaran set up fortuna longlining: the longline

reel, one branchline bin, somefloats and a couple of flag-poles


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The problem is serious, as in1996, 20 per cent of the exportedalbacore tunas were rejected byUS canneries. The lack of ice-boxes on the Alia catamaransand the rough on-board han-dling of the catch are the maincauses of this poor quality.

In March 1997, the WesternSamoa Fisheries Division re-quested the assistance of theSouth Pacific Commission’sFisheries Training Section torun a series of short workshopsto train local fishermen andtuna exporters on the on-boardhandling and grading ofsashimi tuna. With funding as-sistance from the Republic ofChina/Taiwan, the South Pa-cific Commission implementedtwo one-day workshops inApia on 26 and 28 May 1997.

The first workshop (26 May)was attended by 22 participants(boat-owners and fishermen),while 17 persons, including 4tuna exporters, participated in

the second training session on28 May. The resource personswere Ken Harada, Sydney FishMarket Quality Control Officerand Michel Blanc, SPC Fisher-ies Education and TrainingAdviser.

Morning sessions were held atthe Fisheries Division class-room and covered tuna biology,tuna physiology, the deteriora-tion process of tuna flesh, thesashimi concept, the factors af-fecting tuna prices on thesashimi markets (tuna grading)and the on-board handling ofsashimi-grade tuna.

Resource materials for thesesessions included Mr Harada’sslide collection, some transpar-encies and the SPC video andmanual ‘On-board handling ofsashimi-grade tuna’.

Afternoon sessions were held atApia Export Fish Packers Ltd’sprocessing plant, where partici-pants practised the on-board

handling of tuna (simulation ondead fish). The tutors showedthe position of the tuna’s brainand main blood vessels. Thegrading of several yellowfinand bigeye tunas was also car-ried out.

The workshops were a success,with 39 persons trained in theproprer handling proceduresfor sashimi-grade tuna. The fa-cilities used during the work-shops (Fisheries Division class-room and Apia Export FishPackers Ltd’s processing plant)were excellent for this trainingand the trainers had access to anappropriate supply of fish forthe practical demonstations and‘hands-on’ work.

The trainers feel that follow-upworkshops will be required inthe near future. Several staff ofthe Western Samoa FisheriesDivision have attended theworkshops and should be ableto run their own training pro-grammes when necessary. To

The new extended Alia catamaran: more deck space, front wheel house, twin outboards.


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Commercial business practices: regional course formanagers of Pacific Island fisheries enterprises

SPC ACTIVITIES

that end, the trainers left someresource materials with theFisheries Division (SPC video,manuals and transparencies onthe on-board handling ofsashimi-grade tunas).

Although the workshops willcertainly improve the way Sa-moan fishermen handle their

catch, the problem of theunsuitablity of the local boatsfor carrying ice-boxes still needsto be solved. The 28 ft Alia cata-maran does not have enoughdeck space for a suitable ice-box, so the trainers suggestedthe use of slurry-bags that couldbe fitted in the boat’s pontoons.

The best-quality fish for export(big yellowfin and bigeye tuna)could be chilled in the slurrybags, while the cannery fish(albacore) would be stored onthe deck and covered with wetbags. All tunas should bespiked and bled immediatelyafter their capture.

Fisheries enterprises in the Pa-cific are rapidly developing tofully commercial operations.Many of these enterprises, lack-ing a commercially-orientedwork force in-country, recruitpersons who, although skilledin other areas, do not have abackground in commercialmanagement.

In response to concerns on thismatter and to a recommenda-tion from the 25th RegionalTechnical Meeting on Fisheries(1994), the SPC Fisheries Train-ing Section obtained fundingfrom UNDP to operate a re-gional training programme onthe management of Pacific Is-land fisheries enterprises.

A workshop on business man-agement for trainers of small-boat operators was run at Santo,Vanuatu, in March 1996, with14 participants from 11 membercountries and territories. Theparticipants in this traininghave since run follow-up work-shops for small-boat operatorsin Papua New Guinea, Solo-mon Islands, Tuvalu, Niue,Federated States of Micronesiaand Tonga.

In March this year, a regionalcourse on commercial practicesfor managers of Pacific Islandfisheries enterprises was organ-ised by SPC. It was attended by12 participants from 10 coun-

tries and territories, and wasdesigned to address those skillswhich would give the most im-mediate benefit to participants.

These included the principles ofmanagement, the commercialethic, accounting practices, per-sonnel management, qualitycontrol and marketing princi-ples. The course was organisedand hosted by the New ZealandSchool of Fisheries in Nelson,New Zealand.

The advantages of using the NZSchool of Fisheries to run thecourse were the historical linksbetween SPC and the School (asix-month Pacific Islands Fish-eries Officers course has beenrun there annually since 1979)and the presence, in Nelson, ofthe biggest fishing port in NewZealand, with its associatedpool of expertise, fish factoriesof all sizes, and on-shore sup-port industries.

After assessing the needs ofparticipants, it was decided toincluded five general topics.These topics and the sessionsoffered under each topic were:

• Business accounting and com-puters: Six sessions coveringaccounting and financial state-ments (profit and loss, balancesheet, and cash flow state-ments), overheads, and the useof computers (spreadsheets).

• Business planning: Eight ses-sions on business planning,using the computer software‘How to plan your business’(a copy of the software wasgiven to each participant).

• Quality for profit and market-ing: Twelve sessions cover-ing seafood handling andquality control, HACCPprinciples, production sys-tems, site visits, value add-ing, marketing and tradingpractice.

• Management practices: Foursessions covering Pacificproblems, problem solving,people management andleadership.

• Seafood and fisheries business:Twelve sessions coveringthe Nelson port infrastruc-ture (site visits), vessel op-erations, vessel economics,vessel electronics, perspec-tives in Pacific fisheries, sea-food business appraisal andcharters and joint ventures.

The course was run in a partici-patory manner, with formal lec-tures kept to a minimum. Thelectures on business accountingand business planning weredelivered by the School of Ad-ministration in a practical way(‘hands-on’ work with comput-ers, use of videos, practical ex-ercises).


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Most of the other sessions wereconducted by guest speakersand learning was achieved

through the sharing of experi-ences and small-group discus-sions. Several site visits were

organised to the Nelson fishingport facilities: Sealord fish andmussel factory plants, Nalder &

Rehua: a new stern trawler worth NZ$ 22 million, the jewel of Sealord company fishing fleet

Participants visiting Nalder & Biddle company to viewthe building of a longliner for the Marshall Islands


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Biddle (a diversified marine en-gineering company), and MacCureSeafood (a small-scale value-adding company specialising insmoked seafood).

One session took place at theNew Zealand School of Fisher-ies, with an overview of vesselelectronic systems, computer-based navigation and an intro-duction to Internet for fisheriesbusinesses.

All the participants felt they hadbenefited from the course, gain-ing a good understanding ofways to manage their businessand widening their exposure tofisheries enterprise operationsand people. Interestingly, theparticipants said they wouldrecommend that other peopleattend this course. They identi-fied 13 staff members of theirown companies and 18 fromsimilar enterprises as potentialparticipants in future courses.

The SPC Fisheries Training Sec-tion is keen to continue trainingprogrammes targeting com-mercial fisheries enterprises inthe Pacific, with the aim of as-sisting an emerging regionalfishing industry and as a meansof creating job opportunities.

If funding can be made avail-able, the SPC will conduct shortcourses for company managersusing a similar approach andtraining methodology to thoseof the present course. In addi-tion to training managers, pro-grammes will be implementedat all levels of the commercialfishing sector. Some needs al-ready identified and under-lined by the participants in theircourse evaluation are the train-ing of skippers and engineers.

Although the statutory trainingof vessel crews can be met lo-cally in most countries, there isa need for short technical

courses for fishing skippers toupgrade their navigation skills(use of electronic aids) and toinculcate a business ethic andpractice. The present shortageof competent marine engineershas been identified as a bottle-neck to the future growth of thefishing industry in the Pacific,so a recruitment and trainingapprenticeship scheme will beimplemented as a priority.

The South Pacific Commissiontakes this opportunity to thankthe United Nations Develop-ment Programme, the NelsonPolytechnic and the Nelson-based fishing industry for theirinvaluable inputs into thiscourse. We wish the participantsevery success in the managementof their fisheries enterprises andhope that, in the near future, simi-lar courses will be implementedto help meet the managementtraining needs of the fisheriesindustry in the Pacific.

Update on video production

Since its inception, the FisheriesTraining Section has been activein the area of video production.The most recent programmesproduced by the Section in-clude ‘On-board Handling ofSashimi Grade Tuna’, ‘BetterSafe than Sorry’ and ‘Survivalat Sea — A Kiribati Tale’.

In to order to complement ateaching manual on the finan-cial management of a small fish-ing business, the Section hasrecently undertaken the pro-duction of a training video onthis topic.

Based on a script written byAlastair Robertson, the film‘Fishy Business’ relates the storyof a fisherman called Pauli whohas his business threatened bya letter from the local bank no-tifying that his boat will be re-possessed unless the outstand-


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SPC ACTIVITIES

ing loan repayments are re-ceived within seven days.

The video shows how Pauli andhis wife Mere learn good busi-ness management practicesfrom Luka, another fishermanwho manages his business verycarefully.

The key points demonstrated inthe video are the importance ofthe feasibility study, the de-scription of fixed and variablecosts, and the use of the SPClogbook. The primary purposeof the video will be to assisttrainers running business man-

agement workshops for smallboat operators. Fisheries de-partments, training institutionsand fishermen’s associationswill receive the video no laterthan July this year. Funding forthis project was provided by theUnited Nations DevelopmentProgramme.

The area of small boat safety hasalready been covered by twovideos produced in 1995 and1996 (see titles above). To rein-force the message, the Sectionwill produce a series of eightshort video clips, each one fo-cusing on a specific safety issue.

These video clips will be filmedin July by Pasifika Productions,a Suva-based commercial videocompany. The actors will be thesame as those who performedin the now famous ‘Better Safethan Sorry’ video, includingRambo, the careless fisherman.

The clips will be distributed toall national TV stations in thePacific region. Funding for thisproject is being provided by theGovernments of Australia andFrance.

Our readers will remember thatthe FAO/UNDP Regional Fish-eries Support Programme(FAO RFSP) used to publishannually the well-known ‘Ad-dresses useful to Pacific Islandsfisheries personnel’. This pub-lication was much appreciatedin the region.

In 1992, the FAO RFSP ceasedits activities and the South Pa-

INFORMATION SECTION

SPC Fisheries Address Book

cific Commission decided tocarry on publication of the ad-dress book. The 1997 edition isnow ready and has been distrib-uted widely in the region. Inaddition to more than 1,000 ad-dresses covering 50 countriesand territories, the address bookincludes basic fisheries statis-tics, Exclusive Economic Zoneareas and a map for each PacificIsland country or territory.

Copies of the Fisheries AddressBook can be obtained by writ-ing to the Fisheries InformationSection, South Pacific Commis-sion, BP D5, 98848 NoumeaCedex, New Caledonia (E-mail:[email protected]). We trustthat this document will remainpopular and we are alwaysopen to suggestions for makingit even more useful.

Terii Luciani, Fisheries Informa-tion and Training Associate, hasrecently been appointed Fisher-ies Training Officer. Terii willtake up this position on 1 Au-gust 1997.

Terii Luciani appointed Fisheries Training Officer

He will now be responsible,amongst other tasks, for the or-ganisation of training pro-grammes, the management ofthe Training Section’s video pro-gramme, and the maintenanceof the Section’s databases (Fish-eries Training Directory andFisheries Personnel Database).

During his short attachment withthe Information Section, Teriihas gained useful experienceand there is no doubt he will beputting his new skills to gooduse at the Training Section.

This means that the FisheriesInformation and Training Asso-ciate position has now becomevacant. Appointment is by se-condment, for one year only.An SPC Recruitment Notice forthis position will be issuedshortly. Its duties and respon-sibilities are listed below:

• Maintain full familiaritywith and active participationin the full range of activitiesbeing undertaken by the In-formation and Training Sec-tions of the SPC CoastalFisheries Programme;


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SPC ACTIVITIES

• Assist as required with theproduction of the SPC Fish-eries Newsletter and Informa-tion Bulletins;

• Assist with the managementof the Information and Train-ing Sections’ databases;

• Assist with the developmentand management of an in-ternal system to store andretrieve information on train-ing issues, activities and op-portunities in the region;

• Gather, edit and collate ma-terials for inclusion in theFisheries Education and Train-ing Information Bulletin, andassume responsibility for allaspects of the Bulletin’stimely production on a bi-annual basis;

• Prepare teaching resourcematerials for use during fish-eries training workshopsand group teaching activi-ties run by the Commission;

• In liaison with the SPC Li-brary and other staff of theMarine Resources Division,respond to requests for in-formation from Pacific Is-land governments, traininginstitutions and individuals.

For more information, please con-tact the Fisheries Information Ad-viser [[email protected]] orthe Fisheries Education and Train-ing Adviser [[email protected]]at the South Pacific Commission.

Information Section helps Niue publish its Domestic Fishing Regulations

During the last Regional Tech-nical Meeting on Fisheries, heldat SPC headquarters in Noumea,from 5 to 9 August 1996, severalcountries expressed their needsfor the publication of educa-tional materials. Recently anofficial request was receivedfrom the Ministry of Agricul-ture, Forestry and Fisheries of

Niue, asking the InformationSection to prepare a compre-hensive booklet on Niue’s Do-mestic Fishing Regulations, inclose collaboration with theMinistry.

This booklet has now been pub-lished and distributed to thefishermen in Niue. It was pro-

duced in both English andNiuean to facilitate publicawareness. We believe that thiskind of document is very use-ful and that many other coun-tries will be interested in doinglikewise. In the meantime, wehave received a request fromVanuatu to produce a similarbooklet in Bislama.

OCEANIC FISHERIES PROGRAMME

Seventeenth session of the Coordinating Working party on Fisheries Statistics

The Coordinating WorkingParty on Fishery Statistics (CWP)has met since 1960, at intervalsof two or three years. Prior tothe current meeting, its mem-bers included seven regionalorganisations — the Commis-sion for the Conservation ofAntarctic Marine Living Re-sources (CCAMLR), the Inter-national Commission for theConservation of Atlantic Tunas(ICCAT), the InternationalCouncil for the Exploration ofthe Sea (ICES), the Organisationfor Economic Cooperation andDevelopment (OECD), theNorth Atlantic Salmon Conser-vation Organization (NASCO),the Northwest Atlantic Fisher-ies Organization (NAFO), andthe Statistical Office of the Eu-ropean Communities (Eurostat)

— and the Food and Agricul-ture Organization of the UnitedNations (FAO). Mr RichardGrainger, Senior Fisheries Stat-istician, FAO, is the Secretary ofCWP, although CWP is not it-self a FAO body.

The CWP terms of reference areto:

• Keep under continuous re-view the requirements forfishery statistics (includingagriculture) for the purposesof research, policy-makingand management, takinginto account their purpose,usefulness, cost, burden incollection and collation,timeliness, quality, confiden-tiality needs and regionaldifferences;

• Agree standard concepts,definitions, classificationsand methodologies for thecollection and collation offishery statistics; and

• Make proposals and recom-mendations for action in re-lation to the collection, colla-tion and dissemination offishery statistics, recognisingthe need to coordinate activi-ties so as to avoid duplication.

The 17th session of the CWPwas held from 3 to 7 March 1997in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.The agenda covered issues re-lated to fishery statistics in gen-eral, and the work programmeof the FAO Fishery Informa-tion, Data and Statistics Unit(FIDI) in particular. Issues of


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SPC ACTIVITIES

relevance to the SPC region in-cluded changes in membershipof CWP; international initia-tives, such as the UN Agree-ment on Straddling Fish Stocksand Highly Migratory FishStocks and the Code of Conductfor Responsible Fishing; im-provement in the reliability ofcatch statistics through meas-ures such as observer pro-grammes and vessel monitoringsystems (VMS); the exchangeand dissemination of informa-tion; discrepancies amongagency databases; modificationsto major fishing area boundaries;by-catch and discard issues; andconversion factors. Points ofinterest are summarised below:

• Following CWP-16, whichwas held in Madrid from 20to 25 March 1995, the stat-utes of CWP were modifiedto allow an increase in mem-bership. Previously, CWPconsisted primarily of or-ganisations concerned withthe Atlantic, but for manyyears it had been felt that be-cause the issues discussedby CWP were of global rel-evance, membership shouldbe expanded. One of the firstactions taken by CWP in thisregard was to invite the SPCFisheries Statistician to par-ticipate as an observer atCWP-15, held in Dartmouth,Nova Scotia, from 8 to 14July 1992. In February 1996,other regional organisationsconcerned with fishery sta-tistics were invited to applyfor membership in CWP,and SPC did so in April1996. The InternationalWhaling Commission also

applied for membership.Applications for new mem-bership of CWP are decidedby a two-thirds majorityvote. Both SPC and IWC wereaccepted as new members atCWP-17.

• Article 36 of the UN Agree-ment on Straddling FishStocks and Highly Migra-tory Fish Stocks provides forreview of the implementa-tion of the Agreement fouryears after its entry intoforce. Also, FAO is obligedto monitor and report on theimplementation of the Codeof Conduct for ResponsibleFisheries and its effects onfisheries, including actiontaken under other instru-ments and resolutions byUN Organisations. It wasnoted at CWP-17 that CWPmay have a role in coordi-nating the reviews by fisheryagencies of implementationof those provisions of theAgreement and the Code ofConduct relating to fisherystatistics and data.

• CWP considered that it isdesirable to establish stand-ards for the transmission ofVMS data. Although it is in-appropriate at this stage tospecify data formats, CWPrecommended that existingcodes and standards be usedwhere these apply, such asthe use of FAO species codes.

• FAO has developed a Win-dows version of FISHSTAT,the software for accessingthe FISHDAB database,which contains annual catch

statistics by species and byFAO area. FAO has also de-veloped a new softwarepackage, ARTSOFT, for usein processing fisheries sur-vey data, which can be usedto estimate catches in artisanaland subsistence fisheries.

• In the past, SPC has con-ducted comparisons of an-nual catch statistics pub-lished in the SPC Tuna Fish-ery Yearbook with FAO statis-tics, and this has resulted inimprovements to the FAOstatistics. SPC will continueto conduct such compari-sons in order to eliminatediscrepancies between thetwo databases.

• In the 1980s, FAO proposeda revision of FAO areas inthe Pacific Ocean in orderthat the statistical areas moreclosely accord with inter-governmental agencies con-cerned with fishery statistics.In particular, it was pro-posed that a new Area 74 beintroduced to accord withthe area of interest of SPC,and that the current Area 71be revised to accord with thearea of interest of the South-east Asian Fishery Develop-ment Centre (SEAFDEC).The proposal has not yetbeen adopted due to con-cerns expressed by the Gov-ernment of Japan. It wassuggested at CWP-17 thatrevisions of FAO areas in thePacific could be revisitedfollowing negotiations forthe establishment of themanagement organisation orarrangement, during whichspecies boundaries will bediscussed.

• Of the CWP member agen-cies, ICCAT and SPC areactively monitoring by-catchand discards. ICCAT has de-veloped data collection


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SPC ACTIVITIES

forms explicitly for suchpurposes, while SPC com-piles data on by-catch anddiscards from the SPC andnational observer pro-grammes.

Most agencies are concernedstrictly with the conversion ofestimates of processed weightto estimates of live weight. SPCis an exception in that it is alsoconcerned with length–length

and length–weight conver-sions, and is collecting datafrom observers specifically toexamine such relationships.

A lecture room at SPC offices inNabua, Suva recently becamethe venue for a workshop totrain participants from sevenPacific Island countries in theskills required to work as fisher-ies observers aboard commercialfishing vessels in the region.The workshop, which ran from31 May to 9 June inclusive, is thelatest in a series conducted overthe last three years to enhanceregional and national fisheriesdata collection capability.

In case you are still uncertain asto what fisheries observer workis all about, be assured thatobserver programmes are nowrecognised as highly efficientdata-collection tools. They are

Regional Training Workshop For Fisheries Observers

How long is a fish?

used to collect information onfishing techniques and catchcomposition from all fishingfleets whether they be domes-tic, purse seine, pole and line,longline, foreign, domestic, in-dustrial or artisanal. This infor-mation is essential to develop-ing effective management re-gimes over what is, for manyPacific Island countries and ter-ritories, their most valuable re-source.

Another task that observersmay be asked to do is to ensurethat the rules in fishing agree-ments that allow foreign fleetsaccess to Pacific Island watersare being properly followed bythe vessel on which the ob-

server is placed. This is referredto as the ‘compliance role’ ofobservers. In some Pacific coun-tries and territories observershave also proved to have aneffective surveillance role. Ob-servers who have reportedsightings of other vessels whichthey observe fishing illegally inthe same grounds as the observ-er’s host vessel have, in someinstances, netted their countryhundreds of thousands of dol-lars in fines.

SPC has its own small observerprogramme whose role isstrictly scientific. These observ-ers are currently trying to getsome base-line data on everysignificant fishing fleet in the


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SPC ACTIVITIES

region. They are also asked toaddress specific areas of inter-est identified as important byfisheries scientists in the region.In order to foster the utmost co-operation from fleets, so as toget data that is as unbiased aspossible, they do not report onillegal activities and their datais fed into a regional fisheriesdatabase as strictly confidential.

Maintaining the integrity andconfidentiality of data is a criti-cal part of all observer pro-grammes and an important con-sideration in observer selectionand training.

The usual observer activitiesinclude: gathering records onsize and weight of fish and ac-curately reporting areas inwhich these fish were caught;making accurate assessments oftotal weight of each speciescaught; collecting biological sam-ples; observing the efficiency ofvessels’ own catch reportingand hence helping to validatethe logsheet data that is sup-plied to fisheries statistics per-sonnel by fishing fleets; report-ing on new developments onfishing gear and techniques inorder that scientists can moreaccurately assess the impact offishing on fish stocks; and re-porting on incidents of interac-tion of different fleets and moregenerally on levels of activityobserved in popular fishinggrounds.

This most recent Observer Train-ing Workshop was held prima-rily to ready observers for work-ing aboard US purse seiners op-erating under the US Multilat-eral Treaty with Certain PacificIsland Parties. But a broaderperspective was offered in or-der to prepare students for simi-lar work as and when it becomesavailable amongst other fleets.

Participants were invited from

Getting into the thick of things. What does it eat?What sex? How bad is its liver?

countries party to the US Treatyin which no in-country observertraining had previously beenoffered. Not all invitations weretaken up, but participants fromCook Islands, Marshall Islands,Nauru, Niue, Tokelau, Tongaand Vanuatu attended. Stand-ards were high—a welcomebonus as the already com-pressed course had to be furtherreduced in duration due to air-schedule problems. Studentsworked through two Satur-days, a public holiday and, tocatch up on difficult subject ar-eas, in sessions with trainersoutside normal hours.

Funds to cover logistical arrange-ments for this workshop camefrom a designated training fundcomponent of the US Treaty.

SPC training support was pro-vided under the South PacificRegional Tuna Resource Assess-ment and Monitoring Project(SPRTRAMP) funded by theEuropean Union. The ForumFisheries Agency trainer isfunded by AusAID. The recog-nition of the importance of therole of observers in Pacific Islandfisheries and the support givenare greatly appreciated.


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SPC ACTIVITIES

Survival training at observer training courses. The trainersthank participants for resisting urges towards violent revolt.May they continue such dedication in their endeavours to

improve the quality of fisheries data available in the region.

1. AGE AND GROWTH OF TROPI-CAL TUNAS

1.1 Background

Growth parameters are key in-puts in assessment models. Agrowth study of yellowfin andbigeye tuna by otolith readingstarted in June 1996 with the

Update on the recent work undertaken by the Tuna and Billfish Research Section

The following is extracted from a working paper presented at the 10th Standing Committee on Tuna and Bill-fish, which was held in Nadi (Fiji) from 16 to 18 June 1997.

recruitment of a biological tech-nician, Bruno Leroy, under theSouth Pacific Regional TunaResource Assessment and Moni-toring Project (SPRTRAMP).

Preliminary results have indi-cated a daily periodicity of ringformation for these two speciesin the Western Pacific ocean.

The otolith samples (704yellowfin and 61 bigeye tunaotolith samples) were collectedduring the Regional Tuna Tag-ging Project (RTTP). Since labo-ratory work requiries the use ofspecial equipment (microscope,diamond saw, etc.) in a prop-erly-equipped laboratory, it isbeing done at the French Scien-


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SPC ACTIVITIES

tific Research Institute for De-velopment through Coopera-tion (ORSTOM) centre inNoumea, which has made labo-ratory space available for thispurpose.

1.2 1996–97 activities

Otolith reading of ‘daily’ ringsis now routinely carried out.Additional sampling of yellow-fin and bigeye otoliths was re-quired, particularly from largerfish, to complete sample setsconsisting of at least 20 pairs ofotoliths for each 10 cm lengthclass between 30 and 150 cmfork length.

Collaboration with the ORSTOMCentre in Tahiti (programmeECOTAP) made it possible tocomplete the sampling, withadditional samples of 68 yel-lowfin and 154 bigeye tunaotoliths, during two visits byB. Leroy during which he par-ticipated in a scientific cruiseaboard the Research Vessel Alis.

A total of 190 yellowfin otolithshave been embedded in resin,cross-sectioned, etched andpolished to be read under themicroscope. Several counts werecarried out for each otolith anda reliability coefficient was as-signed to it.

The preliminary analysis of theseresults uses only samples with‘good’ or ‘fairly good’ reliabil-ity, i.e. 79 per cent (N=140) ofthe total sub-sample. The plot ofdaily ring numbers in relationto the fork length seems to showa two-stanza growth pattern, aphenomenon already describedfor that species in the AtlanticOcean by Gascuel et al. (1992).

As a direct consequence, estima-tion of the growth parameters isbetter when only samples with afork length above 50 cm are usedin the regression (see Table 1).

Sexual dimorphism in growthwas tested. The difference be-tween growth of males and fe-males is significant, the femalesshowing a higher growth ratethan the males. However theabsence of samples for femaleslarger than 120 cm result in apoor estimation of L∞.

To compare and validate ourtechniques and results, contactshave been made with other labo-ratories involved in the samekind of work. Preliminary dis-cussions with staff of the Com-monwealth Scientific and Indus-trial Research Organisation(CSIRO [Hobart]) fish-aginglaboratory led to a visit to theirlaboratory in March 1997.

Discussions with Dr John Gunnand his team, who are involvedin a growth study of southernbluefin tuna, were useful andenabled us to compare our in-terpretation of daily rings. Aproblem arose in our interpre-tation of the first series of large‘daily’ rings.

While SPC counts each mark asa daily ring, CSIRO considersmany of them (approx. 1 in 2)to be sub-daily rings. This agreeswith new, unpublished results,which show a cycle in concen-

tration of chemical constituentsof the otolith along the growthaxis.

In fact, the correspondence be-tween that cycle and the firstrings implies that some of themmust be considered to be sub-daily rings. In these conditionswe can have a constant bias inour counting of approximately20–30 days.

But after that first series, wehave agreed that every markwe can discern (the thinner areabout two microns wide)should be counted.

That seems to be confirmed bythe observations made on thefew OTC (Tetracycline oxide)-marked otoliths (made byStequert), which indicate thatall the marks have to be takeninto account to obtain thenumber of days at liberty be-tween release and recapture

1.3 1996–97 work plan

The growth study for yellowfintuna should be finalised thisyear with a publication, andafter revision of our count in thelight of the new information onthe first daily rings. The analy-sis will include a comparison of

Table 1: Estimation of Von Bertalanffy’s growth parameters foryellowfin tuna for all samples (A), samples with FL>50 cm(B), females (F) and males (M)

95% confidence intervalParameter Estimate Std. Error Lower Upper

L∞ 418.7 178.6 65.5 771.9A K 0.123 0.064 –0.004 0.25

To –0.107 0.073 –0.252 0.037

L∞ 188.1 37.2 114.18 262.1B K 0.434 0.168 0.101 0.768

To 0.312 0.149 0.016 0.609

L∞ 246.4 150.4 –56.3 549.2F K 0.293 0.28 –0.270 0.857

To 0.253 0.264 –0.278 0.783

L∞ 204.5 68.5 66.7 342.3M K 0.35 0.215 –0.082 0.783

To 0.201 0.244 –0.290 0.691

K = curvature parameter; To = initial condition parameter


20

SPC ACTIVITIES

growth parameters with thoseobtained from tagging data(3,482 recaptures). The study onbigeye has just begun and maybe conducted in collaborationwith Dr. J Gunn from theCSIRO.

2. ENVIRONMENTAL DETERMI-NANTS OF TUNA FISHERY PRO-DUCTION IN THE WESTERN

EQUATORIAL PACIFIC

2.1 Background

The study of relationships be-tween tuna and the environ-ment started in 1995, with theobjective of investigating theinfluence of the hypothesiseddistribution of tuna forage (asinferred from the redistributionof primary productivity using aglobal ocean circulation model)on catches of surface tuna.

A transport model based on thediffusion–advection equationwas developed with monthlyaverage current data for thetropical Pacific (20°N–20°S),then extended to the entire Pa-cific ocean by means of an oceangeneral circulation model(OGCM) providing the fields ofsurface current.

The first results were reallyencouraging, since they repro-duced quite well the distribu-tion of skipjack in the Pacific,particularly the antagonistic east–west distribution in the equato-rial Pacific Ocean regarding pri-mary production and tuna

abundance (results presented atthe 9th Standing Committee onTuna and Billfish — SCTB).

In a preliminary analysis, a gen-eral linear model (GLM) wasused to seek the best relation-ship between skipjack catchesand the environmental param-eters, including classic variablesused in such studies (sea-sur-face temperature and salinity,depth of the thermocline, depthof a limit oxygen value), as wellas the new, promising tuna for-age index.

Results of the analysis con-firmed that the distribution ofsuitable prey is a key factor thatinteracts with the temperatureparameter to define ‘zones ofwell-being’ where skipjack areabundant (results presented atthe 9th SCTB).

The influences of tuna forageand surface temperature weretherefore integrated into apopulation dynamics model forskipjack, to help account for thenon-homogeneous distributionof the species.

2.2 1996–97 activities

Since the numerical simulationof the surface tuna forage hadproved to be a promising ap-proach, sustained effort wasmade to improve the model.

This included a critical analysisof the model and a search forthe time lag which gives the

best correlation between simu-lated tuna forage and distribu-tion of skipjack tuna.

The second major area ofprogress concerns the investiga-tion of the influence of the in-ter-annual variations (El Niño–La Niña) on the distribution ofskipjack tuna in the westernand central equatorial PacificOcean.

It was demonstrated that thezonal displacements of skipjackabundance within a fishingground extending over 6,000 kmare highly correlated with move-ment of a convergence at theeastern edge of the warm pool(Lehodey et al., submitted).

This convergence is induced bythe westward advection of cold,saline water from the central–eastern equatorial Pacific en-countering an eastward advectionof warm, fresh water from thewestern equatorial Pacific(Picaut et al. 1996); the conver-gence also shifts in phase withthe warm El Niño and cold LaNiña events of the ENSO cycle.

These displacements can beidentified with different indices(sea-surface temperature andsalinity, Southern OscillationIndex), now predictable sixmonths to a year in advancewith reasonable probability ofsuccess (Chen et al., 1995).

For the tuna fishery, such pre-dictions are of primary impor-tance as they result, amongother things, in considerable re-ductions in searching time andcosts, and allow the choice ofappropriate ports of call to bemade well in advance.

2.3 1997–98 work plan

The critical analysis of the re-sults concerning the simulatedsurface tuna forage should lead


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SPC ACTIVITIES

us to test new OGCM data, asthey become available, whichreproduce the surface oceaniccirculation in the western Pa-cific more adequately.

With these new simulations, orsimply by taking into accountthe potential bias in the spatialdistribution highlighted in thatanalysis, the effect of other en-vironmental parameters (tem-perature, oxygen, thermocline)could be re-analysed with a gen-eral linear or additive model.

The strong relationship betweenskipjack tuna abundance, thewater-mass convergence at theeastern edge of the warm pooland their drastic displacementsassociated with ENSO providesan excellent mean of validationfor the model of tuna foragesimulation.

However real time-series dataare needed, rather than themonth-averaged data used todate. A first attempt could usethe Coastal Zone Column Sen-sor (CZCS) phytoplankton pig-ment concentration for the pe-riod 1979–84, including thestrong El Niño event of 1982–83,but keeping in mind the prob-

lem of incomplete coverage onthe oceanic scale of these data.

Furthermore, we should inves-tigate the possibility of usingocean colour data from the newocean colour sensor, OCTS(Ocean Color and TemperatureScanner), on the Japanese ADEOSsatellite, launched in August1996, or SeaWiFS (Sea-viewingWide Field of view Sensor),which was expected to belaunched in June 1997.

These data would allow us tocompare recent surface tunacatches with outputs of themodel on a continuous timeseries, and eventually on an al-most real-time basis. The im-provements then expected fromthe model would allow someprediction of fishing conditionssome time in advance, andgreatly assist our understandingof the dynamics of the westernPacific Warm Pool ecosystem.

3. REFERENCES

BARNETT P., N. GRAHAM, M. A.CANE, S. ZEBIAK, S. DOLON, J.O. BRIEN & D. LESLER (1988).On the prediction of the ElNiño of 1986-87. Science,241, 192.

CHEN, S. ZEBIAK, A. J. BUSALACCHI

& M. A. CANE (1995). An im-proved procedure for ElNiño forecasting: implica-tions for predictability. Sci-ence, 269, 1699.

GASCUEL D., A. FONTENEAU & C.CAPISANO (1992). Modélisa-tion d’une croissances endeux stances chez l’albacore(Thunnus albacares) del’Atlantique est. Aquat. Liv.Res. 5: 155–172.

LEHODEY P. (submitted). Influ-ence of general oceanic cir-culation on skipjack tuna fo-rage: a modelling approach.

LEHODEY P., M. BERTIGNAC, J.HAMPTON, A. D. LEWIS & J.PICAUT (submitted). ENSOand Tuna in the WesternPacific Warm Pool.

PICAUT J., M. IOUALALEN, C.MENKES, T. DELCROIX & M. J.MCPHADEN (1996). Mecha-nism of the Zonal Displace-ment of the Pacific WarmPool: implications for ENSO.Science 274, 1486.

Scanning electron microscope viewof a cross-section of a yellowfin otolith


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NEWS FROM IN & AROUND THE REGION

SUMMARY OF THE MEETING OF THE WESTERN PACIFIC REGIONALFISHERY MANAGEMENT COUNCIL

The 92nd Western Pacific Re-gional Fishery ManagementCouncil closed its week-longseries of meetings on 25 April1997, taking action on a compre-hensive range of fishery issuesand setting forth an active pro-gramme for the calendar year.

The Council is the policy-mak-ing organisation for manage-ment of fisheries in the US Ex-clusive Economic Zone (EEZ),which is the area between threeand 200 nautical miles offshorearound American Samoa,Guam, Hawaii, the NorthernMariana Islands and other USpossessions in the Pacific.

The Western Pacific Council isone of eight in the US and isunique in that it manages andregulates fisheries in an area ofwater equivalent to about one-half of all the ocean waters un-der federal jurisdiction.

As was evidenced by the 92ndCouncil Meeting, fish and fish-eries remain extremely impor-tant to the diverse cultural mixof people that make up thepopulations of the islands in theWestern Pacific region.

The first series of meetings wasconducted by the Council’sAdvisory Panels on 21 April.There is an Advisory Panel, orAP, covering each of the Coun-cil’s four Fisheries ManagementPlan areas: pelagics, bottomfish,crustaceans and precious corals.APs meet regularly throughoutthe year and provide input andrecommendations to the Coun-cil’s deliberations and decision-making. AP members are takenmainly from persons involvedin the particular sector.

Thus, the Pelagics AP is madeup predominantly of peoplewho make a living from fishing,processing, or marketing tunasand billfish, as well as peoplerepresenting related interestssuch as sportfishing and char-ter boat operations. The APmeetings addressed a diverserange of issues and then for-warded recommendations forthe full Council’s deliberations.

The Council’s various StandingCommittees then convened on22 and 23 April, providing spe-cialised reviews of each fisherymanagement plan, ecosystemsand habitat, fishery rights ofindigenous people, and en-forcement. These committeesalso develop recommendationsfor Council action.

On 8–10 April, the Council’sScientific & Statistical Commit-tee (SSC) met in Honolulu to de-velop recommendations in an-ticipation of the 92nd CouncilMeeting.

The SSC is composed of scien-tists and specialists from fed-eral, state, and territorial agen-cies, academic institutions andother sources. Its members rep-resent a range of academic dis-ciplines, which are necessary inpreparing and reviewing fish-ery management plans. Therecommendations from the SSCmeeting were included in theCouncil’s agenda.

From 24 to 25 April, the full Coun-cil met and approved a widerange of actions. These included:

• Requesting that the Councilbe designated as the leadagency on any federal fish-eries matters within the pro-posed humpback whalesanctuary for Hawaii;

• Reaffirming its agreementwith the opinion that thereis no clear evidence that the(whale) sanctuary will mate-rially contribute to recoveryof the whale population andthat research goals do notclearly show what data arelacking now or what dataare important to collect;

• Recommending that the lob-ster harvest quota for theNorthwestern Hawaiian Is-lands (NWHI) for the subse-quent year be announced 90days after the close of thecurrent season, and the lob-ster season be opened ear-lier, on 1 June each year;

• Requesting that the NationalMarine Fisheries Service(NMFS) provide fundingand support for a voluntaryobserver programme for the1997 NWHI lobster season;

• Requesting that the NMFS ex-pedite the Vessel MonitoringSystem (VMS) for the NWHIlobster fishery by 1 July;


23


• Requesting NMFS Enforce-ment to open a local ‘Hotline’in American Samoa, Guamand the Northern MarianaIslands, because the toll-freenumber established for therest of the US is not availablein these areas;

• Commending the HawaiiDivision of Aquatic Re-sources for its efforts to man-age the bottomfish fisheryaround the Main HawaiianIslands and recommendingspeedy development andimplementation of the man-agement regime;

• Continuing development ofthe Council’s back-up planto manage onaga (Eteliscoruscans) and ehu (Eteliscarbunculus) stocks in theEEZ around the main Ha-waiian Islands;

• Investigating non-harmfultechniques to reduce the in-teraction between dolphinand bottomfish fishermen;

• Obtaining more, better infor-mation on seamounts andbanks around American Sa-moa;

• Requesting NMFS to studybottomfish around the North-ern Mariana Islands to estab-lish whether bottomfishstocks are overfished;

• Finalising the limited-entryrules for bottomfish vesselsin the Mau Zone of NWHIthat will lead to a reductionin the fleet size;

• Extending the moratoriumon the Hancock Seamountarmorhead fishery for an-other six years while con-vening a meeting of expertsto discuss internationalmanagement of the entirefishery under the UN Agree-

ment on Straddling FishStocks;

• Allowing the affected long-line and handline fishermento resolve their own differ-ences and establish co-exist-ence at the Cross Seamountfishery;

• Collaborating with longlinefishermen to use techniquesand devices that will reduceor eliminate the accidentaltaking of albatrosses, and toremove and return legbands from dead birds to theUS Fish & Wildlife Servicewithout reprisal;

• Requesting NMFS scientistsresponsible for the Section 7opinion on marine turtles tomake a presentation on howthey arrived at the allowabletake-and-kill levels for theHawaiian longline fishery;

• Requesting a ruling fromNMFS on the exact interpre-tation of the Marine Mam-mal Protection Act sectionconcerned with dolphin/whale interaction and its ef-fects on all pelagic fisheriesin the Council’s jurisdiction;

• Studying the feasibility ofimplementing an electronicvessel monitoring system(VMS) for all US- and non-US-registered vessels oper-ating out of American Sa-moa. Should a programmebe approved, it would be sup-ported with funding from thefederal government;

• Establishing a Small BoatWorking Group for Ameri-can Samoa and the NorthernMariana Islands (NMI) toaddress concerns of fisher-men and to conduct trainingworkshops in the NMI to helpfishermen improve theirpelagic fishing skills;

• Conducting a study of howocean recreation activitiesmight be adversely affectingthe akule (Selar crumenoph-thalmus) and opelu (Decapterusmacarellus) fisheries aroundHawaii, with the possibilityof extending the study toAmerican Samoa, Guam andthe NMI;

• Studying the influence ofpurse seining for akule andhow the removal of an entireschool by such methods af-fects the gene pool of thepopulation;

Decapterus macarellus

Selar crumenophthalmus


24


• Investigating the feasibilityof recommendations fromthe Native & IndigenousRights Advisory Panel, in-cluding:

– allowing indigenous people ofthe US Pacific Islands to har-vest sea turtles for home con-sumption and cultural pur-poses, provided such practicesdo not endanger the resource;

– allowing indigenous people toenter federal, state, territorialand commonwealth marineconservation areas and sanc-tuaries to harvest marine lifefor home consumption or cul-tural purposes, as long as it isconsistent with the overallconservation and protectionobjectives;

– allowing only indigenous peo-ple of American Samoa andpermanent residents currentlyactive in local commercial fish-ing to fish within 50 nauticalmiles of shore and limiting thesize of such fishing vessels to10 gross tons or less in orderto protect local, pelagic andbottomfish fisheries;

– requiring all foreign vesselsfishing within the EEZ of anyUS Pacific Island to carry aCouncil-endorsed VesselMonitoring System;

– allowing indigenous US Pa-cific Islanders access to allshoreline recreational areascurrently under US militaryjurisdiction or under otherfederal jurisdiction;

– imposing a tax on shark finssold in the US Pacific Islands,with the monies generated tosupport market developmentfor other shark products;

– obtaining all topographic andmarine resource assessmentsurveys conducted in theCouncil’s EEZ;

– Sponsoring a meeting of theNative & Indigenous RightsAP prior to the next Councilmeeting in order to addressany outstanding issues;

• Budgeting US$50,000 to ex-pedite Council activities pro-moting indigenous fishingrights, practices and oppor-tunities;

• Amending the Precious Cor-als Fishery ManagementPlan to establish a frame-work mechanism to allowthe Council to adjust man-agement measures as newinformation becomes avail-able;

• Recommending that the ap-propriate agency investigatethe importance of black coralas a juvenile fish nursery;and

• Establishing an InternationalAffairs Standing Commit-tee, primarily to work withPacific Island Nations andDistant Water Fishing Na-tions on the management ofhighly migratory fisheries.

The Council’s various planteams will now meet to reviewthe actions taken by the 92ndCouncil meeting and developits recommendations in prepa-ration for the next Councilmeeting on 18–22 August 1997.

The Western Pacific FisheryCouncil is made up of 16 mem-bers (13 voting) representingthe Territories of American Sa-moa and Guam, the State ofHawaii, the Commonwealth ofthe Northern Mariana Islands,and various federal agencies. Itis chaired by Jim Cook, a Hawaiicommercial fisherman. Vice-chair-persons are: Paul Bordallo (Guam),Arnold Palacios (CNMI), WilliamPaty (Hawaii) and Dr PaulStevenson (American Samoa).

(Source: Mark Segami, WPFMCPublic Information Officer)

ADB ASSISTANCE TO THE FISHERIES SECTOR IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA

ADB’s recent assistance to NFA

In October 1996, the Govern-ment of Papua New Guinea(PNG) asked the Asian Devel-opment Bank (ADB) for anAdvisory Technical Assistance(TA) programme to assist infurther capacity-building andpolicy reform in the fisheriessector.

The Government and the Bankhad previously agreed that this

TA would comprise much ofthe preparatory technical assist-ance that would help in prepar-ing the previously proposedSector Development Program(SDP) Loan. The SDP Loan is anew loan modality that com-bines three traditional assist-ance vehicles—the project loan,the programme loan and tech-nical assistance.

In response to the Govern-ment’s request, the Bank fielded

a fact-finding mission in No-vember 1996 to discuss the ob-jectives, scope, cost estimates,financing plan, and implemen-tation for the TA with the con-cerned Government agencies.

A Bank-funded comprehensivesector study had been under-taken earlier, with a final reportin December 1995. The sectorstudy reviewed policy issues,sector and environmental is-sues, and institutional develop-


25


ment needs. Further sector stud-ies have been undertaken onfisheries credit, vessel viability,Human Resources Develop-ment (HRD) needs, and surveil-lance needs. A beneficiary pro-file and a review of gender is-sues were prepared at that time.

A benchmark, socio-economicprofile was also prepared andthe methodology for projectmonitoring and evaluation sug-gested. Those earlier efforts pro-vided much of the direction forfurther capacity-building andresource policy reform.

The Bank and other donorshave assisted capacity-buildingand policy reform. One Bank-financed TA was concernedwith strengthening the Depart-ment of Fisheries and MarineResources (DFMR) which coin-cided with the formation ofNational Fisheries Authority(NFA) as the key agency in fish-eries industry management anddevelopment.

This assistance was continuedin the form of the provision ofa Senior Fisheries Adviser. As-sistance to NFA included thedrafting of a Corporate Plan,restructuring NFA, drafting afisheries policy, redefining theNational Fisheries TrainingCollege, establishing a TrustAccount, commencing the com-pilation of an Asset Register,and establishing close relationswith the industry in the inter-ests of lobbying for fisheriesreform. All these efforts need tobe continued with a view toestablishing a semi-autono-mous, self-financing, and moreeffective fisheries resource man-agement institution.

ADB’s future advisory techni-cal assistance

The objectives of the technicalassistance are to:

(a) help consolidate the statusof NFA as an efficient andeffective, self-financing,appropriately staffed, andsemi-autonomous agencymanaging the sustaineddevelopment of the fisher-ies public resource andgenerally supporting in-dustry development in theinterests of the industry, in-vestor, employee, govern-ment, and public at large;

(b) help further strengthen theinstitutional capabilities ofNFA in the specific areas ofresource management andindustry support;

(c) help further define indus-try investment needs andfurther improve the policyenvironment in support ofcompetitive and sustain-able fisheries development;

(d) help draft clear and consist-ent individual fishery man-agement strategies andplans in support of the com-bined interests of all indus-try participants and sus-tained resource develop-ment; and

(e) complement and facilitateother donor support in theareas of HRD, surveillance,management information,monitoring, research andfinancial management.

It is intended that the self-fi-nancing status to be reached byNFA by the end of this TA willenable the authority to increas-ingly self-finance this kind ofassistance.

To meet the TA objectives, in-dividual consultants will be re-cruited by the Bank in the areasof fisheries management, fish-eries industry development,corporate finance, and corpo-rate law. These consultants willassist in further defining insti-tutional strengthening, includ-ing possible incorporation, fur-ther improving the professionalmanagement of NFA, and in-corporating NFA if and whenrequired.

All consultants will be highlyqualified and have suitable rel-evant experience. Every effortwill be made to recruit recog-nised consultants with relevantexperience in PNG, in the in-dustry, and with matters of in-corporation in PNG.

The consultancy services willtotal twenty-five person-months, including fourteen fora senior fisheries managementspecialist, five for a senior fish-eries industry developmentspecialist, four for a corporateaccountant and two for a corpo-rate lawyer.

If this assistance is approved atthe Board level in ADB, the TAcould get underway in mid-1997and be completed by mid-1999.

(Source: Fisheries Newsletter, Na-tional Fisheries Authority PNG,Volume 2, No.2, December 1996)


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CANADA’S FISHERMEN PLUNGE BACK INTO DEEP WATER

Just four years after a lack offish closed the cod fisheries onCanada’s east coast, the govern-ment has decided to allow lim-ited fishing to resume. Butmany fisheries scientists saythat there is no evidence thatstocks have recovered.

Over the next year, fishermenwill be permitted to catch10,000 t of cod off the South coastof Newfoundland, 6,000 t in thenorthern gulf of the St. Lawrenceand 2,000 t in the southern Gulf.

The Fisheries Ministry, whichannounced the quotas lastweek, says it based its decisionon recommendations of theFisheries Resource Conserva-tion Council (FRCC), a govern-ment-appointed body of fisher-men, industry representativesand academics. Last year, theFRCC suggested that the fish-eries could be re-opened if strictcontrols and enforcement pro-cedures were put in place.

But the move has been heavilycriticised. ‘The reopening of thefisheries is completely irrespon-sible,’ says Ransom Myers of

Dalhousie University in Hali-fax, Nova Scotia, and until threeweek ago a government scien-tist with the ministry. ‘There isno indication from our best es-timates that these stocks haveincreased.’ He warns that popu-lation growth in cold water isvery slow: the fish do not ma-ture until they are seven yearsold, compared with about fouryear for warmer-water stocks.

William Doubleday, who headsthe Science Unit within the Fish-eries Ministry, calls the quotas‘quite conservative.’ They areonly a fraction of what was be-ing caught in the 1980s, he says,and points out that the fisheryoff north-eastern Newfound-land, which was the biggest,supplying about half the codfished from the Canadian At-lantic, remains closed.

But he admits that the Ministrydoes not have reliable popula-tion estimates for the fisheriesnow being reopened. ‘We can’tsay there has been a substantialrecovery,’ he says, but adds thatthe fish that are there appear tobe more healthy.

In 1992 and 1993, when thefisheries were closed, some fishwere ‘so thin that some mayhave died during the winter’.

Most scientists agree that in theearly 1990s, unusually harshtemperatures may have stuntedthe fishes’ growth. What it notclear, says Doubleday, is whythe young fish are apparentlynot surviving as well as theyshould. ‘The number of spawnersis low, but not low enough toexplain the number of survi-vors,’ he says.

Fred Mifflin, Canada’s Ministerof Fisheries and Oceans, saysthat fishing will stop if there isevidence that stocks are suffer-ing. But critics claim the decisionto open the fisheries may bepolitical. They point to a loom-ing federal election, and thegovernment’s desire to attractvotes in fishing communities.

(Source: New Scientist, 26 April1997)

INFOFISH — TUNA 97

The Fifth World Tuna TradeConference will be held at theCentral Plaza Hotel, Bangkokfrom 25 to 27 October this year.TUNA 97 is organised byINFOFISH in collaboration withFAO-GLOBEFISH, Departmentof Fisheries Thailand and ThaiFood Processors’ Association.

The latest in a series of INFOFISHTuna Conferences, the forth-coming event will addressed bynearly twenty-five speakers,including industry leaders, ex-perts and policy makers. Theywill present topics of vital im-

portance to the tuna industryand trade in four sessions.Wolfgang Krone, former Assist-ant Director-General a.i., FAOwill be the keynote speaker andConference Chairman.

James Joseph, Director of theInter-American Tropical TunaCommission (IATTC) will speakon the tuna resources and out-look in the first session focusingon global overview. JojiMorishita, Deputy Director, Ja-pan Fisheries Agency is also aconfirmed speaker for this ses-sion. A presentation on market-

ing strategy development fortuna products by Henk Brus,Vice-President, MCM Foods,Netherlands, is another high-light of this session.

Industry situation and outlookin major supply sources will beexamined in two sessionswhere prospective speakersfrom Indonesia and Thailandwill be making presentations.

The tuna situation in the Phil-ippines will be presented byFrancisco Tiu-Laurel, Jr., Vice-President, Frabelle Fishing Cor-


27


poration. The Japanese tunaindustry situation, with specialemphasis on cultured tuna, willbe assessed by Katsuo Taya,Tokyo University of Fisheries.Peter Wilson of Global OceansConsultant, Hawaii will take aclose look at the tuna industryin the small Island countries inAsia and the Pacific.

Paul Antonietti, Saupiquet,France, will speak on the tunaindustry situation and outlookin the Western Indian Ocean aswell as West Africa. The tunaindustry situation in Taiwanwill be presented by Peter Ho,President, Overseas FisheriesDevelopment Council of Tai-wan.

Among other topics presentedby prospective speakers in thissession is the tuna industry situ-ation in Latin America, by LuisSan Miguel, President, Carib-bean Fishing Trading, Panama.

Session three will deal withproducts, markets and market-ing. An overview of tuna mar-kets by Helga Josupeit, FAO-GLOBEFISH will be followedby a presentation on legal and

pricing strategy for Japanesetuna markets by Steve Williams,University of Queensland, Aus-tralia. Jose Munoz, Jr., Presi-dent, LMR Fisheries Research,USA will cover the US marketsfor non- canned tuna products.Walter Anzer, Secretary Gen-eral, BACFID will speak on theeuropean market for tuna, in-cluding issues related to importregulations for canned tuna.

Ryuichi Tanabe, President, Ja-pan Far Seas Purse Seine Fish-ing Association and former Ex-ecutive Director of Japan MarineProducts Importers Associationwill speak on Japanese cannedtuna markets and will be fol-lowed by a presentation onemerging Asian markets fortuna by Fatima Ferdouse,INFOFISH. An update on petfood products from tuna andmarkets will be presented byLawnin Crawford, GeneralManager, Purina Japan in thesame session.

Technological, quality andtrade issues will be the focus ofSession four. The highlight ofthe session is a presentation byMary Sender, Food and Drug

Administration (FDA) CFSAN,USA on Hazard Analysis andCritical Control Points (HACCP)for canned tuna.

Other topics slotted in includeapplication of HACCP in tunaindustries in developing coun-tries by Dan Brooks, Interna-tional Food Technology, Thai-land. Presentations on the latestdevelopments in tuna filletingand handling and bulk trans-portation of tuna and trade bar-riers are among the topics in-cluded in this session.

Each session will be followedby a panel discussion. Day onewill have morning and after-noon sessions, while afternoonswill be kept free on Days two andthree. The Conference will fea-ture a video film on tuna process-ing and fishing as well as cata-logue display. Post-conferenceoptional tours to tuna canneriesare arranged.

(Source: INFOFISH)

THIRD SPREP MEETING ON CLIMATE CHANGEAND SEA LEVEL RISE IN THE PACIFIC

Pacific Island countries and ter-ritories (PICTs) are particularlyvulnerable to climate variabilitychange, and sea-level rise, dueto their physiographic, ecologi-cal, socio-economic and culturalcharacteristics.

With assistance from the UnitedNations Environment Pro-gramme (UNEP) Ocean andCoastal Areas Programme, thegovernments of Australia, USA,Denmark and Japan, the Com-monwealth Secretariat and theregion’s scientists, PICTs man-dated the South Pacific Regional

Environment Programme(SPREP) as the regional organi-sation to coordinate climate-change activities in the region.Since then, numerous projectsand activities have been imple-mented.

Amongst these activities, SPREPorganised the last two Intergov-ernmental Meetings on ClimateChange and Sea Level Rise inthe Pacific (Majuro, MarshallIslands, July 1989 and Noumea,New Caledonia, February 1992).A regional climate-change pro-gramme was developed in 1991

and is being implemented bySPREP. The objective of theSPREP climate-change pro-gramme is to understand andrespond to climate change, par-ticularly through integratedcoastal management.

This third Climate Change andSea Level Rise Meeting is or-ganised by SPREP in collabora-tion with ORSTOM (the Frenchscientific research institute fordevelopment through coopera-tion) and with local supportfrom the South Pacific Commis-sion. The Meeting will be held


28


from 18 to 22 August 1997 inNoumea, New Caledonia. It isaimed at decision makers, sen-ior governmental and planningofficials from all SPREP mem-ber governments and adminis-trations, and media and NGOrepresentatives from in andaround the region.

SPREP and ORSTOM will coor-dinate and invite resource peo-ple from international organisa-tions (i.e. the Intergovernmen-tal Panel on Climate Change(IPCC), the World Meteorologi-cal Organisation (WMO), theIntergovernmental Oceano-graphic Commission (IOC),UNEP) working in this region,regional institutions (i.e.ORSTOM, the University of theSouth Pacific (USP), the SouthPacific Applied Geo-ScienceCommission (SOPAC), the Fo-rum Secretariat, the South Pa-cific Commission (SPC), theUniversity of Papua NewGuinea (UPNG), etc.), relevant

scientists, planners and policyadvisers to assist in achievingthe objectives of this meeting.

In addition the Meeting will en-able participants to exchangeideas, information and fosterworking relationships betweenscientists and governments ofthe region.

The main objectives of thismeeting are to:

• Review the results of the lat-est scientific developmentsin particular, reports of theIPCC Working Groups andtheir implications for the re-gion, and opportunities toadvance the understandingof climate change;

• Review the results of cli-mate-change activities rel-evant to the Pacific region,such as:

(a)Tropical Ocean and GlobalAtmosphere (TOGA),Coupled Ocean Atmos-phere Response Experi-ment (COARE), South Pa-cific Sea Level and ClimateMonitoring Project, Atmos-pheric Radiation Measure-ment (ARM), Intergovern-

mental Oceanographic Com-mission (IOC)/UNESCO,Joint Global Ocean FluxStudy (JGOFS) and otherregional scientific researchand activities,

(b)Meteorological Programmesincluding the South PacificMeteorological Project,WMO/CLICOM activities,

(c) SPREP reports and studies;

• Update participants on the on-going UNFCCC negotiations.

• Identify the needs of PICTsand raise their awarenessand understanding on theclimate-change issue in or-der to facilitate policy devel-opment;

• Strengthen and enhance co-operation between interna-tional organisations, such asthe Intergovernmental Ocea-nographic Commission(IOC)/UNESCO, the WorldMeteorological Organisation(WMO) and United NationsEnvironment Programme(UNEP) with SPREP mem-ber countries.

(Source: SPREP/ORSTOM)

MARINE DOCUMENT ACCESS VIA INTERNET

The Pacific Islands Marine Re-sources Information System(PIMRIS) at USP Library hassuccessfully completed a trialproject on the use of Internet toreceive documents from marineinstitutions outside the region.The Document Delivery Projectproper, the first of its kind atUSP, was launched on Friday16 May, thanks to the Interna-tional Association of Aquaticand Marine Sciences Librariesand Information Centres(IAMSLIC) Grant which ena-bled PIMRIS to establish itselfas a document receiving station.

The Coordinator of PIMRIS,Ganeshan Rao, explained thatthe project required a specifictechnical setup which connectsa workstation onto the Internetwith its independent InternetProtocol (IP) address.

The project uses a specific soft-ware—ARIEL for Windows,the document transmission sys-tem from the Research Librar-ies Group (USA). ARIEL runson MSDOS as well as Windowsmachines. With this software, a486+ computer, a HewlettPackard (HP) laser printer and

HP flatbed scanner, images orany printed page can be scannedinto the computer and a file sentvia Internet to another site withan “Ariel workstation”. Theimage or file is received at thedestination site and printed.


29


ARIEL software provides a fast,inexpensive, and high-qualitydocument delivery. Although itintegrates scanning, transmit-ting, receiving and printing intoa single system, in view of theimmediate needs and fundinglimitations, PIMRIS has optedto become a ‘receive and printonly’ station. However, Mr Raoanticipates that the project willeventually grow to include scan-ning and transmitting. ‘Thisnew development at USP Li-brary can also facilitate its Inter-Library Loan services,’ he said.

PIMRIS has established recipro-cal arrangements with anumber of marine science insti-tutions outside the region forinformation exchange. In thebeginning, the Project will assistPIMRIS to receive documents atno cost from Scripps Institute ofOceanography, Marine ScienceInstitute (University of Texas atAustin) and University of Ha-waii Science Library. It is likelythat other institutions which areassociated with IAMSLIC andhave ARIEL stations will offertheir services to PIMRIS.

During the trial phase of theProject the main partners whocooperated with PIMRIS wereScripps Institute of Oceanogra-phy (University of California atSan Diego), University of Ha-waii—Science Library, and Re-search Libraries Group (USA).Advice and expertise on techni-cal work was provided by theUSP Computer Centre.

(Source: The University of the SouthPacific Bulletin, Volume 30, No: 14,23 May 1997)

Scientists have developed a wayto track elusive fish in the oceanaround the Hawaiian archi-pelago. The information couldlead fishermen to bigger catchesand help fishery managers pre-serve and build up resources.

A group led by Jeff Polovina,ecosystem environmental in-vestigations director at the Na-tional Marine Fisheries Serv-ice’s Honolulu Laboratory, de-veloped a software to makemaps of ocean features similarto these of land topographywith hills and valleys.

For the first time, he said, theyare able to plot eddies, currentsand other ocean features, moni-tor their changes and see howthey affect fish movements. Theyare using data from the Topex-Poseidon satellite, which meas-ures the ocean’s height within aninch. Topex-Poseidon spinsaround Earth every 10 days cov-ering the ocean, and the infor-mation is on the Internet tool.

National Marine Fisheries Serv-ice’s fishery biologist DonKobayashi said, ‘We can basicallydo a new map every 10 days, andwithin these maps we are ableto predict where things might endup, how features are moving.’

Companies have approached thescientists for help in developingand using research technologycommercially, Polovina added.

Hawaii’s longline fishery hasgrown over five years into aUS$ 50 million-a-year opera-tion, primarily for swordfish tothe north and bigeye and yel-lowfin tuna around the Hawai-ian Islands, he said.

Kobayashi said the team is con-centrating on use of the satellitedata to understand the sword-fish fishery in the northern partof the archipelago. ‘If swordfishare following areas of goodfood, that can also have an ef-fect on where they will end up.’

A subtropical front weakenedin the swordfish grounds in1994–95 but is stronger now, hesaid. ‘We can see these featuresand send them out to look atwhat’s going on in the wholewater column.’ Until now, hesaid, ‘there was no way to knowif you were sitting in the mid-dle of one of these things.’

Measurements below the oceansurface and information col-lected on plankton and othersea life will help his group cali-brate calculations of currents

and interpret the features, hesaid. The researchers also aregetting a better picture of circu-lation around the Hawaiian Is-lands and the impact on larvaedistribution, Polovina said.

For long time, for instance, theywondered about lobsters, hesaid. ‘Where do larvae go? Are theyswept away?’ The larvae floataround for one year in the ocean,so the pattern of currents is im-portant, he said. The group usedsatellite data for a computersimulation program to showwhere the larvae would end upa year after leaving Maro Reefand Necker Island.

The information is valuable forfisheries management becauseit indicates that some islandscould be harvested heavilywhile others, with few larvae,may take a long time to re-bound, he said.

The scientists are also applyingthe data to study the range ofturtles, sharks, tunas, swordfishand other animals, and wherethey go to eat, whether the fish-ery is changing because of habi-tat variabilities and if there isoverfishing, Polovina said.

(Source: Star Bulletin)

SCIENTISTS DEVELOP OCEANIC SOFTWARE


30

PACIFIC ISLANDCOUNTRIES AND THE

AQUARIUM FISH MARKET

by Vincent Dufour1

INTRODUCTION

The marine aquarium-fish mar-ket is supplied through interna-tional trade in fish captured livein their natural environment, asvery few ornamental sea fishbreed in captivity. This diffi-culty is linked to their early lifehistory when the fish are larvaea few millimetres in length, liv-ing in the open ocean.

Larvae develop in this environ-ment for two weeks to threemonths. The life cycle of coralreef fish therefore consists oftwo stages, i.e. a planktonic lar-val stage in the ocean, followedby juvenile and adult stages onthe reef. As marine fish harvest-ing (100 t annually worldwide)is still based on collection in thenatural environment, the im-pact of gathering ornamentalfish appears low in comparisonto fishing, although it does ac-count for millions of specimens.

THE MARINE AQUARIUM FISH

MARKET

Marine fish represent approxi-mately 20 per cent of a total worldornamental fish market worththree billion dollars annually(Andrews, 1990). The unregu-lated economies of the export-ing countries, which are oftenalso developing countries, makeit difficult to obtain quantitativedata about the species exploitedfor the aquarium-fish trade.

In addition, control in import-ing countries is often limited topackaging, which prevents

monitoring of the exact numberof fish. Estimates are made fromthe total weight, including wa-ter, of imported packages(Sieswerda & Marquardt, 1995).

The aquarium fish trade hasprobably doubled since the early1980s and salt-water fish ac-count for a growing proportionof this activity. There are threemain reasons why the markethas developed:

1) improvement in farmingtechniques and in aquariumequipment,

2) within the flourishing petbusiness, aquariums repre-sent decorative and exoticecosystems attractive to resi-dents of temperate countrieswho spend long periods in-doors, and

3) increase in air traffic (a ma-jor factor). Since 1980, in-creased tourism to tropicalcountries has led to moreflights to and from export-ing countries, making thesupply of ornamental ma-rine fish more diversifiedand less costly.

IMPORTING COUNTRIES

The largest importers of orna-mental fish are the UnitedStates, the United Kingdom,Germany, France and Italy. In

Asia, Japan is a major importerand China also has a traditionof keeping ornamental fish. Theretail turnover of ornamentalmarine fish in the United King-dom was worth £ 4.10 millionin 1987, with an import value(CIF) of £ 1.10 million (An-drews 1990; Wood, 1992).

EXPORTING COUNTRIES

We identified the destinationsof three different exportingcountries (Table 1). The USAwas followed by some Euro-pean countries: the United King-dom, Germany, France, Italy.There was little variation in per-centages between these destina-tions. The strong ties which existbetween the United Kingdomand the three countries studiedexplains the high proportion ofexports it accounted for.

INTERNATIONAL REGULATIONS

The international trade in wildanimals, which is governed bythe Washington Convention(CITES) has not yet endangeredornamental marine fish. How-ever, some endemic ornamen-tal fish species could be wipedout if large-scale harvesting werecarried out in their restrictedhabitats. Sea-horses, whose large-scale harvesting was recentlyrevealed, are probably responsi-ble for a growing awareness ofthe risk of extinction facing somereef fish species (Vincent, 1996).

MARINE AQUARIUM FISHERIES IN

ISLAND COUNTRIES

The impact of aquarium fisher-ies on natural populations hasbeen studied in detail only inthe Maldive Islands, byEdwards and Shepherd (1992).Fish were harvested from anarea of reef in a radius of 15 kmfrom the capital, Malé. Almost

1 École Pratique des Hautes Études, URA CNRS 1453, Université de Perpignan, 66860 Perpignan Cedex, France; andCentre de recherches insulaires et observatoire de l’environnement (Island Research Centre and Environmental Observa-tory), B.P. 1013, Moorea, French Polynesia


31

100,000 fish were being gath-ered annually in this zone(1 specimen/year/100 m2), butthis figure was very low for theMaldives as a whole.

According to the abundancesobserved at fishing groundsand the number of specimensexported annually per species,27 species seem to be threatenedwith overfishing and 12 of thesespecies are being exploited at arate equal to or higher than esti-mated yields, even if some areonly collected in small quanti-ties (Table 2).

From the economic point ofview, the study revealed both aturnover of 600,000 Frenchfrancs (FOB value) and 25 full-time jobs. The price of fish var-ied by a factor of 100 depend-ing on the species (average: US$2.43). The study pointed outthat the average price of fishincreased by a factor of sevenbetween 1980 and 1989.

HAWAII

In 1994, 430,000 ornamental fishwere collected in Hawaii. Of the210 species captured, four ac-counted for 71 per cent of thetotal number of specimens (Ta-ble 3). Two-thirds of the fish

PACIFIC ISLAND COUNTRIES AND THE AQUARIUM FISH MARKET

Table 1:Destinations and trade percentage for marine fish exported from Sri Lanka (Wood,1985), the Maldives (Edwards & Shepherd, 1992) and Singapore (Wood, 1992).The reference year is given in parentheses

SRI LANKA (84) 800* MALDIVES (86) 233** SINGAPORE (89) 4 ,190**

United Kingdom 22% Sri Lanka 69% USA 31%

USA 20% United Kingdom 14% United Kingdom 18%

RFA 15% RFA 6% Germany 8%

Italy 9% France 5% Italy 8%

France 7% Singapore 3% France 7%

Belgium 7% USA 1% Switzerland 5%

Singapore 5% Japan 1% Japan 4%

Others 15% Others 1% Others 19%

* Value (£’000,000)** Quantity (thousands of fish exported).

Table 2:List of fish species exported from the Maldivesin quantities (specimens per year) greater thanthe theoretical yields in the fishing areas

Species Quantities exported

Chaetodon auriga 1,840Chaetodon lunula 230Chaetodon unimaculatus 60Chaetodon xanthocephalus 1,320

Apolemichthys trimaculatus 330

Pterois antennata 230Pterois radiata 1,910

Balistoides conspicillum 80Rhinecanthus aculeatus 1,570

Coris formosa 100

Macropharyngodon bipartitus 49,110Novaculichthys taeniourus 1,860

Species Quantities Value caught (US$)

Zebrazoma flavescens 199,359 318,262Ctenochaetus strigosus 22,512 32,092Acanthurus achilles 17,824 71,000Zanclus cornutus 11,617 34,145

Total 251,312 * 455,499 **

* 59 % of total quantities exported** 54% of total value of exports

Table 3:Number of specimens caught and value of thefour main species of marine organisms con-cerned by the aquarium fish trade in the Stateof Hawaii in 1994


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were sold locally to exporters orretailers (Miyasaka, 1991; 1994).The fish caught were valued atUS$ 850,000 (US$ 1.97 per fish).In 1994, 220 commercial licenceswere issued, but fishing andtrading represented less than100 full-time jobs.

SRI LANKA

A study carried out in 1984(Wood, 1985) gave a list of thefish exported from Sri Lankawhich included 29 species ofChaetodontidae, 13 of Labridae,11 of Balistidae, 10 of Poma-centridae and 9 of Acanthuri-dae. The estimate given was200,000 fish exported annually,equivalent to a turnover ofUS$ 600,000 to US$1,200,000(FOB). The number of jobs wasestimated at less than 500, manyof which were probably onlyoccasional.

PUERTO RICO

Sadovy (1992) reports that160,000 to 200,000 ornamentalfish are harvested annuallyaround the island and exported.Five fish species account for twothirds of the exports: Grammaloreto, Opistognathus aurifrons,Holocanthus tricolor, Pomacan-thus paru and Balistes vetula. Theauthor estimates that some spe-cies are already being over-fished. This activity has createdabout 70 jobs, including 40 full-time ones.

PHILIPPINES AND INDONESIA

Few data are available on thesetwo countries, although theyare the two largest exporters ofornamental marine fish in theworld. In the Philippines, thistrade increased by a factor of 20between 1970 and 1979 andcontinued to expand until 1990,with more than a million fishexported. It seems to have stag-nated in the meantime due to

the negative effects of cyanidefishing (Hingco & Rivera, 1991).More than 2,500 people werethought to participate in thisactivity. Indonesia exports ever-increasing numbers of orna-mental marine fish. Damage tofishing grounds, by either in-creased cyanide fishing oroverexploitation, is now posingsevere problems in that country(Dayton, 1995).

TECHNIQUES USED TO HARVEST

ORNAMENTAL FISH

Destructive fishing methods arecurrently the most serious prob-lem for this sector. In the Phil-ippines, fishing with sodiumcyanide is prohibited, but is stillused in 80 per cent of cases(Hingco & Rivera, 1991). Thispoison kills many fish duringfishing or in the weeks that fol-low and is also dangerous forthe fishermen themselves.

Courses to train fishermen inother techniques are being tried.Amongst the other toxic sub-stances used to harvest orna-mental marine fish are organo-phosphorous insecticides, quinal-dine, chlorine, diesel fuel anddynamite (Randall, 1987,Sadovy, 1992).

Quinaldine is thought to carrya risk for the divers’ thyroidglands. Although some peopledo not see any disadvantage inusing quinaldine, Australianscientists, for example, now useother alternative substances.

But all the various chemicalsubstances put in the water toharvest ornamental fish havebeen shown to be harmful, ei-ther to the environment or tothe fish or the fishermen. Westrongly urge that any use ofsynthetic chemical products ornatural substances to collect or-namental fish be banned.

Of the other fishing techniquesused, the barrier net is best. Thisis a 2 m high net, 10 to 15 mlong, with a mesh size under 2.5cm (Randall, 1987). Hand netsor dip nets are used for fishingwith diving equipment, as theyare selective.

There is also a large variety oftraps and scoop nets which canbe used to catch ornamentalmarine fish. Care should betaken to ensure that live coral isnot knocked over or broken byfishermen who want to capturethe ornamental fish which hidethere.

Only nets with a mesh sizeunder 2.5 cm should be used, asmany small species are likely tobe injured by bigger mesh. Sta-tionary nets, dip nets, scoopnets and breathing apparatusmay all be permitted.

CHOICE OF SPECIES AND

QUANTITIES HARVESTED

If harvests remain localisedthey do not endanger the natu-ral stock, because it can be re-plenished through the move-ment of fish from adjacent areasor through colonisation by fishlarvae from the ocean(Couchman & Beumer, 1992;Edwards & Shepherd, 1992;Randall, 1987; Wood, 1992).

For that reason, it is preferableto have an ‘after-the-fact’ in-spection of fish which have al-ready been captured, to recordthe species, fishing ground lo-cation and harvesting conditions(dates, methods, etc).

Study of natural stocks of orna-mental fish should only be con-sidered if fishing activity in-creases significantly. However,in order to avoid any possiblerisk of overfishing, the precau-tionary approach (Garcia, 1994)should be taken, so as to define



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34

temporary fishing quotas forornamental fish with high com-mercial value and low abun-dance on the reef.

These quotas should be appliedon a species-by-species basis(e.g., annual harvest of 100, 1000or 10,000). The quotas could beincreased after verification thatthe natural stocks of the variousspecies are not threatened ifthey are exceeded. In a similarmanner, a quota could be set forendemic species, when they aresufficiently abundant.

LIMITS TO THE MANAGEMENT OF

FISH STOCKS

A pre-requisite of stock man-agement is an estimate of thepopulation from which harvest-ing will occur, followed by acount of the number of fishharvested.

However, fish abundancessometimes contradict harvestforecasts based on estimatedstocks, even with commercialfishing. One of the principalfactors in the natural fluctuationof ornamental marine fishstocks is the number of larvaecolonising the reef, which rep-resent true natural fish produc-tion.

As fishing for the aquariumtrade is based on the number ofspecimens and not on biomass,the colonisation rate could yielda theoretical maximum harvest.

However, for many species, thenumber of larvae colonising


any given island in any one yeardepends on how well the larvaesurvive in the ocean and cannotbe used to predict figures onanother island or even for thefollowing year. On a smallerscale of time and space, the colo-nisation rate is more easily pre-dictable by species (Dufour &Galzin, 1993).

Also, the mortality rate foryoung reef fish, which is veryhigh on the reef during thisperiod, decreases rapidly. Thenumber of very young fish colo-nising the reef is therefore muchhigher than the number ofadults already settled in the reef(Dufour et al., 1996).

In contrast to the normal fisherymanagement methods, whichoptimise biomass and not thenumber of specimens har-vested, it would be preferable inthis case to collect the fish asyoung as possible, since about90 per cent of them will disap-pear before adulthood. This prac-tice would conserve the stock ofadult fish, which are the natu-ral producers of these larvae.But little is yet known aboutvery young fish, which are dif-ficult to catch alive.

SMALL ISLAND COUNTRIES’ PAR-TICIPATION IN THIS TRADE

Collection of ornamental fishand lagoon fisheries

Aquarium-trade fish species arenot those normally harvestedfor food, which enables diver-sification of the species targeted(Couchman & Beumer, 1991;Edwards & Shepherd, 1992).Collection of ornamental fishcan also help diversify fisheries,without any particular effect onthe resources which are alreadybeing exploited.

Conflicts of interest are, how-ever, possible with some users

of the reef, particularly tourists,who visit the lagoon.

Assessment of economic impact

Although ecological considera-tions must be applied in a waythat ensures the natural envi-ronment is better protected,economic criteria remain deci-sive in this type of activity.

Regulatory requirements forthe collection of fish must nothamper the economic viabilityof the activity, or fishing will goon either illegally or withoutproviding any economic ben-efits.

For example, it would be point-less to authorise collection offish only on remote islands,because the cost of local trans-port would then make thesefish more expensive than thoseproduced in other exportingcountries.

For these reasons, absolute eco-logical requirements must takethe form of regulatory con-straints which do not threatenthe economic viability of thisactivity. They should allow forsustainable development of theactivity while preserving thenatural environment.

AN ASSESSMENT OF THIS ACTIV-ITY IN ISLAND COUNTRIES

By comparing this market inexporting countries, it can bedetermined that the export of100,000 fish represents an an-nual turnover of approximatelyUS$ 200,000 and 10 to 20 full-


35


time jobs. Except for a few coun-tries which have very limitedreefs, it seems reasonable to as-sume that the ichthyologicalfauna and the extent of the reefstructures in most of the islandcountries in the Indo-Pacific zonepermit a level of production com-parable to that of the Maldivesor Fiji. It is also important toknow whether the cost of har-vesting and exporting the fishwill be competitive in compari-son with competing countries.

Air freight represents 50 percent of the price and its costcannot be locally controlled.However, as the FOB value ofornamental fish includes thecost of fishing, storing, packag-ing and local transport, it mustalso be very competitive.

Fishing costs (boats, fuel, gearetc.) can be quite high, as canlabour costs, and this is signifi-cant, as the fish are caught byhand. Labour costs will there-fore be a determining factor inthe economic viability of thisfishery, since some exportingcountries have very low-pricedlabour.

This type of fishing is also oftena secondary professional activ-ity. In order to encourage it,local regulations must lessenthe salary-related costs andgrant customs-duty reductionson the gear needed for this ac-tivity.

RECOMMENDATIONS AND

CONCLUSIONS

The harvest of ornamental ma-rine fish is of economic interestfor Island countries. If the costsof transport and salaries can becontrolled, the development ofthis activity could quickly yield,for an annual harvest of 100,000fish, a turnover of US$ 200,000and 10 to 20 permanent jobs. Inorder to conserve resources, the

first thing to be done is to ensurethat are no transgressions ofauthorised fishing methods.Arrangements must be made toensure that inspections are car-ried out during fishing or laterif necessary and dissuasive pen-alties must be applied.

We propose that catches of themost vulnerable species beregulated according to the pre-cautionary approach, by settingquotas. Monitoring of the quan-tities exported, together withvisits to the fishing grounds,should make it possible to ad-just the quotas.

If the activity increases signifi-cantly (say more than 250,000fish annually), monitoring of thedensities of exploited populationswould be needed at the fishinggrounds in order to ensure sus-tainable development of thisactivity. Tax incentives shouldalso be devised.

REFERENCES

ANDREWS, C. (1990). The orna-mental fish trade and fishconservation. J. of Fish Biol.37 (suppl. A): 53–59.

COUCHMAN, D. & J.P. BEUMER.(1992). The commercial fish-ery for the collection of ma-rine aquarium fishes inQueensland, status and man-agement plan. Departmentof Primary Industries,Queensland Government.24 p.

DAYTON, L. (1995). The killingreefs. New Scientist, Nov.1995: 14–15.

DUFOUR, V. & R. GALZIN. (1993).Colonization patterns of reeffish larvae to the lagoon atMoorea Island, French Poly-nesia. Marine EcologyProgress Series, 102: 143–152.

DUFOUR, V., E. RICLET & A. LO-YAT. (1996). Colonization ofreef fishes at Moorea Island,French Polynesia: the impor-tance of the larval flux for thepopulation of resident fishes.Mar. & Freshw. Res., 47 (2):413–422.

EDWARDS, A.J. & A.D. SHEPHERD.(1992). Environmental impli-cations of aquarium-fish col-lection in the Maldives, withproposals for regulation.Env. Cons., 19 (1): 61–72.

GARCIA, S.M. (1994). The precau-tionary approach to fisherieswith reference to straddlingfish stocks and highly migra-tory fish stocks, FAO Fisher-ies Circular N° 871: 1–50.

HINGCO, T. G. & R. RIVERA.(1991). Aquarium fish indus-try in the Philippines: towarddevelopment or destruction?In: L.M. Chou et al. (eds). To-wards an integrated man-agement of tropical coastalresources. ICLARM Confer-ence Proceedings, 22, 455p.249–253.

MIYASAKA, A. (1991). Hawaii’saquarium fish industry, abusiness profile. Division ofAquatic Resources, Depart-ment of Land and Natural Re-sources, State of Hawaii, 15p.

MIYASAKA, A. (1994). Status re-port aquarium fish collec-tions, fiscal year 1993–1993.Division of Aquatic Re-sources, Department of Landand Natural Resources, Stateof Hawaii, 8p.


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RANDALL, J. E. (1987). Collectingreef fishes for aquaria. In:B. Salvat (ed.) Human im-pacts on coral reefs: facts andrecommendations. AntenneMuseum-EPHE, FrenchPolynesia, 253p. 30–39.

SADOVY, Y. (1992). A preliminaryassessment of the marineaquarium export trade inPuerto Rico. Proc. 7th Int.Coral Reef Symp., Guam, 2:1014–1022.

SIESWERDA, P. & J. MARQUARDT.(1995). Saving fragile coralecosystems requires coop-eration. Wildlife Cons., July– August 1995: 18–25.

VINCENT, A.C.J. (1996). The inter-national trade in sea-horses.Traffic International.

WOOD, E. (1985). Exploitation ofcoral reef fishes for theaquarium trade. Marine Con-servation Society, 4 Glouces-ter Road, Ross-on-Wye, Her-efordshire HR9 5BU, UK,121 p.

WOOD, E. (1992). Trade in tropi-cal marine fish and inverte-brates for aquaria. Proposedguidelines and labellingscheme. Marine Conserva-tion Society, 4 GloucesterRoad, Ross-on-Wye, Her-efordshire HR9 5BU, UK,35 p.

© Copyright South Pacific Commission 1997

The South Pacific Commission authorises the reproduction of this material, whole or in part, in any form,

provided appropriate acknowledgement is given.

Original text: English

South Pacific Commission, Marine Resources Division, Fisheries Information Section,B.P. D5, 98848 Noumea Cedex, New Caledonia

Telephone: (687) 262000 – Fax: (687) 263818 – E-mail: [email protected]

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