Parties To Nauru Agreement: Facing Challenges Of Success Meeting of PNA in Honiara aims to resolve ongoing issues HONIARA, Solomon Islands (Solomon Star, March 11, 2014) – The United States government and its purse seine fishing industry have tripled what they are paying for fishing rights in waters of the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA). The PNA’s “vessel day scheme” (VDS) now enforces a minimum payment of US$6,000 per fishing day, providing ever-greater financial benefits to island members. And at the end of 2013, PNA began successfully marketing internationally certified sustainably caught skipjack in Europe, generating a premium price for the product. PNA’s engagement has brought a paradigm shift to the western Pacific tuna fishery long-dominated by distant water fishing nations. “We’ve been successful in dramatically increasing benefits to our islands because of the unity of the Parties,” said PNA CEO Dr. Transform Aqorau, who is based at PNA headquarters in the Marshall Islands. Success brings new challenges, and the PNA faces key decisions at next month’s annual meeting that will shape the region’s US $7 billion tuna industry in 2014 and beyond, he said. Representatives from Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Nauru, Palau, Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Kiribati and Tuvalu will gather in the Solomon Islands March 5-14 for their annual meeting. Among the PNA’s list of challenges is how to distribute US$93 million resulting from last year’s successful conclusion of negotiations with the U.S. government and its tuna industry. Differing interpretations in 2013 of “non-fishing days” by PNA members turned this into a prominent loophole in PNA’s vessel day scheme, which aims to limit the total number of days to both create scarcity that drives price and conserve the resource. Demand for fishing days will only increase with a lineup of foreign fishing fleets beating a path to the lucrative fishing zones of the PNA.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 05:09:24 +0000
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