Pacific Report

Fisheries War Escalates

Japan is unlikely to pay higher prices for Pacific rights.

By Robin Bromby

fisheries war between the is f land states of the South Pacific

and Japan looks like intensify

ing. Tuvalu has followed Papua New Guinea’s lead in breaking an agree ment on the basis that the prices offered by the Japanese for using the waters of its 200-nautical-mile exclu sive economic zone are far too low.

There are now suggestions that in the coming tuna season some Japanese boats may attempt to fish illegally and will be arrested if caught.

Members of the Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) are demanding better prices after having wrung an agree ment out of the United States, but the Japanese, who take about 235,000 ton nes of tuna out of Pacific waters, are showing no sign that they will accede to these demands. The dispute will almost certainly prove far more in tractable than that with the US tuna fleet. The Japanese have shown few signs in the past 25 years of conceding on financial and economic arrange ments, while Pacific leaders are show

ing signs of becoming increasingly

angry at Japanese intransigence and arrogance. FFA director Phillip Muller has gone on record as saying that South Pacific countries are expecting to have to seize Japanese vessels

fishing illegally this season.

Earlier this year the Americans signed an agreement that provides royalty payments to the Forum na tions. It followed years of illegal fishing by US boats and several arrests and heavy fines when island nations could catch the boats. The agreement was possible only because the Amer ican Government overruled the de mands of its own fishermen. But with the Japanese it is much harder to drive a wedge between business and government, to find the dividing line if, indeed, there is one. White the

Japanese have been adept at wringing

concessions for their products around

the world, they have proved equally

adroit at protecting their own indus tries from competition or what they

regard as heavy imposts.

Even if the Pacific countries get the Japanese to sign on the dotted line, that by itself may mean little. “They

probably won’t fish illegally, but they’ll

go into a treaty and then reinterpret it to their own needs just as they did in the coal agreement with Australia,”

says Dr Geoffrey Waugh, formerly a

senior economist with the FFA in Homara and now lecturing at the University of New South Wales. “It’s hard

to break through Japanese industry

and get to the government.” He says another problem is that many fishing boats operate on marginal return and that Japan cannot afford to pay a similar royalty to the Americans without drastically rationalising its fleet (now between 800 and 1000 boats), There is also the possibility Japanese fishermen would underreport their catch after the agreement was signed.

What the Japanese do and what they say can cause confusion: in 1986, then-foreign minister Tadashi Kuranari said his country was eager to promote stability and development in the South Pacific region but both Tuvalu and Papua New Guinea have withdrawn fishing rights after the Japanese refused to pay what those

countries considered a fair source ren tal. The Japanese company, C Itoh, also pulled out of the troubled Levuka cannery when its initial agreement with the Fiji government lapsed.

Tokyo has already refused to open negotiations with the FFA countries; the Pacific states, many of which see fish as their main economic resource and greatest opportunity for impro ving their people s lot, want a regional fishing deal. Both sides seem to be digging in for the long haul.

The one wild card is whether as happened at the height of the dispute with the American tuna men the Soviet Union approaches any of the island states with an attractive offer

for fishing rights. Though not popu

lar in the region, the USSR at least has a reputation for honouring com mercial arrangements and not fishing

illegally. □