Resources / WESPAC, the Honolulu-based body that recommends U.S. fishing policy in the Pacific, has proposed to more than double the catch of bigeye tuna by its long-line fleet. The recommendation, which requires further approval, comes as other countries are cutting back in order to prevent the species from collapsing. The proposal has raised strong objections from Pacific Islanders, international environmental groups and some of the council’s own members.

At its latest meeting in October, the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council approved recommendations that would allow the Hawaii longline fleet (which makes up almost the entire U.S. longline fleet in the region) to take over unused quotas in American Samoa, Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas. This would add 6,000 tons a year to the Hawaii fleet’s quota. The license holders would pay a fee to a Sustainable Fisheries Fund controlled by WESPAC, according to WESPAC documents.

The move comes as Washington has negotiated to have the Hawaii fleet reduce its take of bigeye by 10 percent over three years while other fleets are cutting theirs by 30 percent over the same period.

The WESPAC proposal requires the approval of the Department of Commerce, and the State Department, which represent U.S. fishing interests in the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC). The commission’s fisheries scientists have been recommending a cut in bigeye take since 2004.

WESPAC member Peter Young voted against the increase, as did Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources Director Laura Thielen. “I believe they are illegal” and “extremely bad policy,” he said.

Young felt strongly enough about the issue to write a “Statement of Disagreement” letter to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, pointing out that even WESPAC’s own Scientific and Statistical Committee scientists had determined that bigeye was overfished and had recommended against any increase in take.

In addition, Young wrote in his letter, the U.S. Magnuson-Stevens Act, which regulates fishing, was recently amended to prevent any regional council from recommending annual catch limits that “exceed the fishing level recommendations of [the relevant] scientific and statistical committee.”

WESPAC’s move came as a result of a decision in December 2008 by members of the WCPFC to curtail bigeye fishing by purse seiners and long liners. Foreign fleets dominate the fishery and those of Pacific states and territories were exempted.

“The current situation,” Young wrote, “takes this problem to another level–using international fishing agreements as an excuse to increase harvest in a long-troubled fishery, despite U.S. law that compels a contrary result. This perfectly exemplifies why WESPAC has the reputation as ‘a notorious enabler of reckless overfishing by commercial fleets’”–a reference to a recent New York Times editorial.

“This is outrageous, irresponsible and the exact opposite of the scientific recommendation,” echoed Philip Kline, a Greenpeace oceans campaigner. “It’s a real slap in the face to the new Magnuson-Steven Act’s requirement to end overfishing.”

Bernard Thoulag, Executive Director of the Federated States of Micronesia’s National Oceanic Resource Management Agency, said that “if these territories claim the same exemptions that are given to the developing island states and territories of the region, (it) would make a mockery out of the whole thing.”

“It goes to show how [a] big and wealthy country like the U.S. can cooperate when dealing with stock sustainability and then use loopholes in the treaty to look after themselves,” added Sylvester Pokajam, managing director of Papua New Guinea’s National Fisheries Authority, in a reference to key U.S. support for the measures passed last December by the WCPFC to reduce bigeye mortality. “In other words their national interests come above all others.”

The head of the Hawaii Longline Association is Sean Martin, whose term as chairman of WESPAC ends this year.

Scott Barrows, the general manager of the association, said the WESPAC action was not intended to more than double the fishing quotas of the association’s 130-odd vessels. “That was never talked about,” he said. “We were aiming at getting a few hundred tons because we’re afraid we might be about to reach our quota limit in early December,” just before the holidays bring demand for high-grade fresh tuna to its yearly peak and highest prices. He said association officials had spoken to officials in Samoa, who had responded enthusiastically, and in Guam and the Northern Marianas, where the response was more guarded.

Barrows said the U.S. State department, which represents U.S. fishers at the Pacific fishery commission, was against the move, which also requires the assent of the Secretary of Commerce.

The Western and Central Pacific tuna fishery now accounts for about half of the world’s catch, as stocks in other oceans have been depleted by overfishing. Most of the region’s fishery takes place in the Exclusive Economic Zones of tiny island nations who depend on the revenue from licenses allocated to foreign fleets. Fisheries specialists say it’s only because these states are strongly motivated to prevent the same collapse of the stocks that occurred in the open seas that they have been able to take steps to curb fishing before it’s too late. Greenpeace, however, insists these steps are still too timid to have much effect on the bigeye and are calling for a 50 percent cut in take and the complete elimination of fish-aggregating devices, which attract almost entirely juvenile fish that are killed before they get a chance to reproduce.

In this context, the U.S., whose South Pacific Tuna Treaty was once hailed as a model of development cooperation, is already under fire for allowing dozens of Taiwanese boats to take up the U.S. flag. The treaty provides for the U.S. to distribute $18 million a year in the region, replacing economic aid and almost entirely eliminating the vessels’ license fees. It also allows U.S.-flagged purse seiners unfettered access to the region’s waters, while other fleets must pay more to fish more days.

As a result of that policy, which State Department officials have declined to discuss other than to say it’s legal, the U.S. purse seine fleet–11 vessels in 2006–has risen to its allowable maximum of 40 today, which is expected to increase the U.S. catch to 10,000 to 20,000 tons of bigeye a year from 4,364 tons in 2006, according to fisheries scientists.

Thus, if the WESPAC proposal goes through, the U.S. catch of bigeye–long-liner and purse-seiner combined–will rise from 8,154 tons in 2006 to anywhere between 24,000 and 34,000 tons.