move further to fish

Fishermen farced Is move further to fish

By Bernadette Hussain

As the El Nino climate change sets in, fisher men around the region are concerned over what may or may not happen.

Not all understand the scientific expla nation behind the condition and may find it hard to understand exactly what is going on.

Those who know, or it would be better to say, have some idea, are also concerned because they are not sure what the conse quences might be. Captain David Lucas of Solander Pacific, a shipping company based in Suva, Fiji, is one such person.

“I have spoken to various people in the South Pacific Commission and New Zealand MIF and they say we are going have to look at it retrospectively,” he says.

“My understanding of it is basically what’s happening is that there is a large passage of hot water coming out from South America which is up to five to six degrees warmer than normal and of course the winds instead of flowing from the south east in the southern hemisphere and the north east in the northern hemisphere are reversed and going back towards the hot spot near South America.

“I don’t really know what it means for us. I know that fish are a lot harder to catch at the moment and the season is different than it has been in the past. We are on the edge of the hot spot and do not know what the effect will be because we do not have a crystal ball but we do know that the effect right now is that fishing is a lot different and the quality of the fish is low.”

He says now they have to go further north to find the fish but the effort really is a waste of time because the quality is not good, meaning the fat content is not there.

“The amount of fat content is very important because in the Japanese market, where most of our fish go, it is the primary consideration when it comes to price.”

On El Nino he says that this is very complex situation which not many under stand.

“All the scientists that I have spoken to are not too sure of what is going to happen either. In 1982-1983 when there was the

last big El Nino, they realised what was happening too late in the period to under stand what the build-up would be.”

He says some boats are travelling north for two days before they put their gear in the water which is about 400 to 500 miles.

“In 1994, we were able to fish very close to port, we could travel out about 12 hours and start fishing. With the cost of fuel of course, it is quite expansive to move too far, then when we catch the fish we find that it is not the same quality and of course the price is down, whereas our costs are up.

“We are also affected by the strength of the Yen, so really what the effect of El Nino is very difficult to say. “What we have to do is put our heads down and work hard and get through whatever it has in store us. In some parts of the Pacific the fishing is very good, in fact better than nor mal such as around the Marshall Islands but if fishing gets any worse around here then I suppose everybody will have to stop fishing till the situation gets better.”

Compared to the same period last year, he says that in the winter months from June to August fishing was very good but in the same months this year that just didn’t hap pen.

“We did not get that peak. If you look at it on a graph there was hardly any rise at all, very disappointing. That was most unusual because every year no matter how bad the fishing was in the summer months, it always peaked in my experience since 1992, in those months.”

So if things get worse will the need to move to other EEZ’s arise in order to make up for the loss?

“It’s a question that I haven’t really given much thought to basically because of the costs involved. Also if you’re going to move out of the Fiji EEZ then you have to start talking to other governments and other EEZ’s requiring licences and what have you there and I think it may be a very complicated process. “But I suppose the only option for us is if we weren’t able to sustain ourselves in Fiji’s EEZ that we may have to move into international EEZ and try our luck there. But that would probably be the last alternative. “We prefer to catch as close as we can. That seems to be the right economical thing to do.”

So what is he going to do?

“Well it looks like it is going to be a large event and we’ll just have to wait around and see what is going to happen as we can’t do anything about it.” ■