A spokesperson for the Parties to the Nauru Agreement says today's Marine Stewardship Council certification will increase fishing revenue for its members.
The council has certified as sustainable the fishery managed by the eight PNA members - Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Palau, Nauru, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati and Tuvalu.
Together they control waters where 68 percent of all Pacific skipjack tuna was caught last year.
Anouk Ride says the ecolabelling makes those waters the world's largest sustainable purse seine fishery.
"There's a lot of demand at the moment in markets like Europe, like Australia, like New Zealand for sustainable fish. So the PNA can now get more economic benefits, more of a premium price for its tuna because of that ecolabel."
Anouk Ride says as a result of the certification, 30 percent of the skipjack caught in the PNA fishery and 16 percent of that caught in Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission waters can bear the ecolabel.
