Letters

Potential of tuna fisheries

Your recent story on the tuna fisheries of the South Pacific was very timely. As an observer with experience of the maritime industry on three continents, perhaps you will allow me to add a few remarks?

There is no question, as you point out, that the Pacific Island States are on the one hand poised to benefit considerably from the huge Exclusive Economic Zones which became rightfully theirs after the UN Law of the Sea Convention. On the other hand, as you also point out, they are threatened by the almost piratical activities of some foreign vessels, who illegally fish within the EEZ or who use irre sponsible methods to take fish in dangerous quantities on the High Seas. These issues will I believe find proper political solutions before long because there is now the will among the Pacific Island States to manage these questions, and fast.

What your story did not address was the additional ways that these States can benefit from the fishing industry. In the end, benefits are of three kinds. First, Licence Fees derived from foreign vessels can give an interim cash flow while the local industry is developed. Second, and better, is the development of that local industry. But there is a third benefit, which you may have forgotten.

Fishing vessels need to be built and equipped. They need to be serviced and re-pro vided with the high value consumable tackle that is routinely lost. The equipment is sophisti cated and very large sums of money are involved. This industrial aspect of the industry has traditionally been the sole purview of the developed nations. No longer. Unnoticed by the press and largely without government help, Fiji has been successfully exporting sizeable vessels overseas to assist in the development of the industry elsewhere. For example, the recent arrival of a new 25-metrc Fiji-built fishing ves sel in Tahiti merited several pages in their press and extensive TV and radio coverage. Back in Fiji, the only mention was weeks later and just a few lines.

Besides the vessels themselves, the design, manufacture and maintenance of the fishing equipment on them has reached what is proba bly the world’s highest standard in Fiji. Did you

know, for example, that Fiji-made equipment is in use in the Mediterranean? In view of this suc cess, it was amusing to find within your pages an advertisement from an American manufac turer, touting information to their equipment which have been standard practice in Fiji for years! More amusing yet, I have learned that a Fiji company, Seamech, has snatched a contract from under the noses of that same American company and will be equipping a dozen or more vessels in French Polynesia.

The lesson is that for the Pacific Islands as a whole, the cooperation between nations must be more than just at the political level. If their indus tries can cooperate and support each other across the seas, they can rise to a level of industrial suc cess hitherto only available in the developed world. When they control this lucrative third level of fishing income, that is when we will be able to say that the Pacific fisheries have reached maturity.

Michael Donnan

Canadian Yacht “Kanatala”

Royal Suva Yacht Club P O Box 335, Suva, Fiji