Forum slams

wall of death

THE SpUTH Pacific Forum’s

fisheries committee, after a meeting at Majuro in the Marshall Islands, has strongly con demned the operation of Asian gill net fishing boats in the South Paci fic. A meeting with government representatives from South Korea, Taiwan and Japan has been sche duled for Suva in late June, and if progress is not made it is expected that the matter will be discussed at the full Forum meeting to be held the following month on Tarawa in Kiribati.

Gill netting involves the use of nets of up to 56 km in length, which are designed to drift in the ocean and catch albacore tuna.

Most of this takes place in interna tional waters east of New Zealand and in the Tasman Sea. The nets also catch sea birds, dolphins, and even small whales which led to the nets being dubbed the “wall of death” but the most immediate problem is that most of the catch is m the form of juvenile albacore tuna. This has resulted in depletion of the tuna numbers of adult fish in the economic zones of the Forum states. The Forum Fishing Agency in Honiara estimates the depletion already caused may take five years to be repaired pro video gill netting does not resume in the southern summer.

The Suva meeting will aim to seek agreement from the Asians that gill netting will be stopped, or at least wound down.

The meetings of fisheries com mittee in Majuro noted that the dramatic and unregulated increase in the number of gill net vessels from Taiwan, South Korea and Japan operating in the Pacific and the Tasman during 1988-89 posed

a major resource and environmen tal threat. The meeting repeated an earlier call for distant water fishing nations to co-operate fully “in an international effort to prevent this random and unjustified plunder of the region’s marine resource”.

The Forum Fishing Agency will be putting proposals at the Suva meeting along the lines that the boats could be used for long-line albacore fishing further north, and even in some economic zones. The only catch is that the resource has been depleted by gill netting to the stage where there would not be enough adult fish to go around an

enlarged long-line fleet.

The agency has been heartened by the growing concern in Australia and New Zealand. The political weight of these countries is con siderably greater than that of the small island states. Also, the U.S.

State Department and the provin cial government of British Col umbia, Canada, have requested observer status at Suva, a sign the North Americans are alarmed by the damage being done to fish stocks in the Pacific Ocean.

There seems little question that the Forum nations are reaching a point where they want urgent ac tion on the matter, and there is a

growing body of opinion that

should the distant fishing nations not curb and then eliminate gill net fishing the island states should threaten to close their economic zones to those countries. This is a potent weapon, as the only area outside the zones which is suitable for long-line tuna fishing is a nar row band between the outer limits of the Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands’ 200 mile limit.

□ Agbank Needs Bailing Out

The Agricultural Bank Of

Papua New Guinea needs an injec tion of KlOO million to keep it out of serious trouble, according to chairman Fred Reiher. The bank’s expanding volume of loan commit ments has far outpaced the growth of equity capital, says Mr Reiher, and the Agriculture Bank has failed to approve many genuine proposals, either because it nad run out of funds or because projected

viability was limited by the interest

rates currently being charged.

The chairman suggests that the National Government seek other sources of funding on cheaper or more favourable terms. Lower in terest rates on money borrowed by the bank would mate low-interest

loans, particularly for agricultural

or fisheries projects more feasible.

Agbank is now approving loans at the rate of K3O million a year.

Mr Reiher says the mining sector boom will not be everlasting.