By Finau Fonua

Pacific Islands fisheries development projects have received USD$45 million in allocations from the European Union over the last four years to help promote sustainable management of fisheries resources and with the aim of ensuring maximum economic returns for the region from the resources.

Meeting in Cairns, Australia, last week from December 2-6, the 10^th regular session of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) received a European Union report on the programmes in the region that had been implemented primarily through two regional agencies, the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) and the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA).

According to its report of December 1, from 2008-12 the EU allocated some USD$45 million to fisheries development. The report stressed, however, that one of the key principles of the assistance is that the EU is not imposing solution. “To the contrary, developing countries are mainly responsible for their own development - based on national strategies.”

The report highlighted the importance of cooperation in fishery for the EU-Pacific development partnership. Since 2012 the EU has communicated that it is willing to pursue and step up its dialogue and cooperation with the countries of the region and the regional agencies, FFA and SPC.

“The Communication 'Towards a renewed EU-Pacific development partnership' published in 2012… puts the focus on the need to step up political cooperation and pursue a coherent agenda in terms of development assistance, sustainable exploitation of national resources and trade,” the report stated.

Consultations 2014

The funding included about USD $26 million allocated to fisheries under the EDF10 regional program.

“Consultations on the regional program under EDF11 have started and will intensify in early 2014. During the first consultation in October 2012, continued support to the fishery sector was suggested by the Pacific countries as a priority to be included under sustainable management of natural resources and the environment, ” the report stated.

In addition to these efforts, individual EU member states also provided assistances to the region, notably the Netherlands, who contributed nearly USD $26,000 to the WCPFC Western Pacific East Asia Oceanic Fisheries Management Project.

Projects

The EU funding supports three programmes known as DEVFISH2, SCICOFISH and ACP FISH 2.

DEVFISH2 is described as a “Financing Agreement” with Pacific Island States. It details a contribution agreement of 2.73 million Euros to the SPC, and a contribution agreement of 4.97 million Euros to the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency from 2010 up to September 2014.

The objective of the project is “to reduce constraints to the domestic tuna industry development” that “arise from economic and environmental vulnerabilities” and to “increase the contribution from the sustainable use of highly migratory marine resources, particularly Tuna, to the alleviation of poverty…”

According to the report, Tonga received technical assistance in policy development and “activities are underway to provide assistance in the preparation of tuna development and management strategy…”

Scientific support

The SCICOFISH project is “scientific support, for the management of coastal and oceanic fisheries in the Pacific Islands region”. The 8.65 million Euros project runs from 2010 up to to 3 March 2014.

The project detailed the training of observers from Pacific Islands including Tonga. It also noted a “Tagging programme”, according to the report the “total number of tagged tuna in the WCPO is now in excess of 366,000 and is the most extensive tuna tagging dataset available for stock assessment.”

The ACP FISH 2 programme aims to “improve fisheries management, both at the national and regional levels” and to “contribute to the sustainable and equitable management of fisheries in ACP regions, thus leading to poverty alleviation and improving food security”.

The 2.74 million Euros programme operation has ended with a total of 24 projects having been or currently under implementation.