Environment / The United States, which likes to think of itself as the most enlightened of fishing nations, is coming under heavy criticism in the Western Pacific for contributing to the demise of some of the world’s last great tuna stocks–a remarkable accusation for an administration that prided itself on taking conservation and climate change seriously.

“Is the Obama government deliberately acting in an anti-conservation role or is it misguided by its advisors?” wondered Sylvester Pokajam, director of fisheries in Papua New Guinea, the country that pushed hardest for conservation measures.

Last year, the nine Pacific nations in whose waters 60 percent of the world’s tuna is fished were given alarming news by the fisheries scientists: their stocks of bigeye, the second most prized tuna for sashimi, had shrunk to a sixth of what they were a half-century ago and would collapse unless fishing was cut 30 percent or more immediately; yellowfin was down 60 percent and needed a 10 percent cut and albacore was down 80 percent and may need a cut soon. Only the irrepressible little skipjack, the most fecund of tunas, seemed unfazed by an increase in harvest levels of 1,600 percent percent in 40 years.

So these nations (Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu), decided to cut fishing by harnessing a new system to control foreign fishing in their waters by the region’s 225 licensed purse-seiners, ships that can lift out entire schools of tuna in huge nets. The fish are crushed in the process and are only good for canning. The new system will force the foreign purse-seine fleets to cut the amount of bigeye they take by 30 percent over three years by instituting a series of measures coming into effect next January–measures that fisheries expert Jim Joseph called “The broadest and most effective of any tuna fishery in the world.”

The most important and precedent-setting measure is to close to all fishing two large pockets of international waters surrounded by the waters of the island nations, creating the world’s biggest no-take areas. When two smaller pockets are added in December, as is expected, the total area will be 475,000 square miles, by far the biggest set of no-take areas in the world. They are three times larger than California and larger than the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, which are mostly devoid of tuna.

The scientists warned that the closures would have no effect if the fleets were allowed to fish in the adjoining waters of the island nations instead, so in effect the closure alone cuts the number of days the fleets spend fishing in the region by about 10 percent.

But the United States is refusing to go along, claiming that its 1988 treaty with 16 island states caps its fleet at 40 but allows these ships to fish as much as they want.

When it was signed, the treaty was hailed as fair and generous. Under it, the American taxpayer foots most of the cost of the U.S. fleet’s fishing licenses under the guise of foreign aid.

But in the past few years, the situation has been turned upside down. Just as the other fleets were preparing to reduce their catch, the U.S. fleet shot up from 14 to 27 in two years and is expected to reach its maximum of 40 soon. This is not because of sudden interest from U.S. fishing companies, but because ships built in and based mostly in Asia, where they sell their catch, have been allowed to re-register under the Stars and Stripes.

Overall, most bigeye is caught by long-liners, which hook adults and sell them in the sashimi market, getting much higher prices than canneries offer. But the U.S. fleet is dominated by purse-seiners, whose catch of bigeye is more than 90 percent made up of juvenile fish that are killed before they can reproduce.

William Gibbons-Fly, director of the State Department’s Office of Marine Conservation and a member of the Honolulu-based Western Pacific Fishery Management Council, declined to discuss the U.S. position. In April, he testified before Congress that the treaty, which expires in 2013, should be renewed. The only reason he gave for not cutting the take of bigeye (he didn’t mention that scientists are urgently calling for cuts) is that the new system that regulates the number of days ships can fish is “a very complex arrangement” and that while the U.S. is willing to discuss cutbacks, “we cannot predict the outcome” of such talks.

“The US fleet has been a conservation leader in many ways,” Sari Tolvanen, an oceans campaigner for Greenpeace International based in the Netherlands, wrote in an e-mail, “but this simultaneous refusal to cut fishing days and increase in the number of ships that target juveniles makes a mockery of its record. The tuna need less fishing, not more, and this policy is incredibly irresponsible.”

Carl Safina, a marine scientist who has written several books on the oceans, added that the American position “is particularly disappointing now. We’ve seen how disruptive it is for the U.S. to act as a rogue nation regarding climate science. Fortunately those days are over. Now it’s the same with fishing, and it’s time for the United States to join the world.”

Pacific Overfishing from a Solomon Islander perspective

Solomon Islander talks about his experience with declining tuna stocks in the Pacific and what he sees as the major problems and solutions

Pacific Tuna Stock threatened by Overfishing

Pacific News Center Report: The Pacific region provides over 60% of the world’s tuna market. Greenpeace Rep. Lagi Toribau says overfishing threatens to the extinction of Yellowfin and Big-Eye tuna. Tuna fishing is a money driven industry and their main interest is to satisfy a global appetite. Toribau says there must be reduction of 50% in overall fishing in the Pacific, No-Take international Marine perserves, and banning of all at seas trans-shipments.