Purse Seiners face the Forum axe

MEMBERS of the South Pacific Forum which represents 16 nations are trying to halt the increase in the number of purse seine vessels operating in the region to prevent the over-exploitation of the tuna fisheries.

Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) director Philipp Muller, who is based in the Solomon Islands, said some boats may have their licences withdrawn.

About 165 purse seine vessels are in the area bounded by Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia. FFA is concerned this num ber could rise to 200 by next year.

Purse seine boats catch about 300,000 tonnes annually. Muller said that unless controls are introduced, this figure could double in the short term. Skipjack tuna resources were adequate to sustain a high level of activity, but there was concern about the exploitation of juvenile yellowfin and big-eye tuna.

Meanwhile, non-U.S. fishing fleets,

with high rates of dolphin kills, will not be allowed to sell their tuna in the US market. So ordered a federal district court

judges in San Francisco. The ruling will have a number of impacts, largely beneficial if indirect, on most Pacific Island nations.

Earth Island Institute, an environ mental group, sued the U.S. Commerce Department and the Bush Adminis tration saying that they were not enforc ing a 1988, pro-dolphin law. That law said, according to Earth Island, that any foreign fleet with more than twice the dolphin kill rate of the U.S. fleet should

Dolphins set tuna barriers

loss access to U.S. markets; the Com merce Department had not ordered the embargo, arguing that it was following a different, legally-appropriate path to reach the same goal of protecting the dolphins. The judge agreed with Earth Island, but his decision probably will be appealed by the Bush Administration, and the judge’s order may be suspended during the appeal.

Purse-seiners often kill dolphin acci dentally as they net the tuna swimming beneath the air-breathing dolphins. It was for this reason that America’s principal tuna packers recently decided to only sell dolphin-safe tuna.

The winners in this court case were: • everyone associated with the Pago Pago tuna canneries. These plants work only with dolphin-safe tuna, whose value may increase as a result of the judge’s decision; • the island nations of the Western Pacific, where dolphin-safe tuna are caught.

The losers are: • The Bush Administration which often favours commercial interests when they are in conflict with environmental interests; • Vanuatu’s ship licensing pro gramme. Tuna from its flagged fleet (presumably not Vanuatu-owned) was one of the five barred by Judge Thelton E. Henderson from the American mar ket.

Earlier this year a U.S. Commerce Department official estimated that in 1989 the number of dolphins killed by foreign tuna fleets had increased by 40 per cent to 84,000, while U.S. fleet dolphin kills fell to 12,600.

The decision may increase slightly the cost of canned tuna in the U.S. □