Protest in Cooks leads to fishing argument over bans

Transcript

A protest in Rarotonga has pit environmental groups against the Cook Islands Government over the measures taken to conserve the tuna stocks.

Over 400 people marched on Avarua Harbour on Friday, with fishermen taking part.

The Government says it has always been conservative in its fishing rules, as regional agencies say it's a complicated job keeping everyone happy.

Alex Perrottet reports

A nationwide petition against purse seine fishing in the Cook Islands' Exclusive Economic Zone had also been in circulation around Rarotonga before Friday's march. Kelvin Passfield, from the environmental NGO Te Ipukarea Society, says his main concern are the fish aggregation devices. He says the industry has admitted that 3 percent of the 30-40,000 tonnes, is juvenile tuna killed off, and that's too significant for the Government to ignore.

KELVIN PASSFIELD: The Government just did not even consider banning the use of fish aggregation devices and already a lot of people were against purse seining in general. So we just, the best thing Te Ipukarea Society could do is just to join with other people who want a ban on the FADs, because that achieves our aim as well, reducing the catch on juvenile bigeye.

But the secretary of the Ministry of Marine Resources, Ben Ponia, says that's not true, and the Government is implementing a ban.

BEN PONIA: We are taking measures. Currently we are implementing a four-month FAD closure, so for four months of the year, FADs are not allowed to be deployed by purse seine fishing vessels. That's just one example of some of the measures that are taking place. We are trying to reduce the amount of catches of the bigeye longline fisheries to also bring down the overall impact of the mortality of those stocks.

Mr Ponia says the Cook Islands fishery is small and that needs to be taken into consideration. He says there's a danger of demonising fishing.

BEN PONIA: Let's bear in mind that in 2013, Cooks Islands accounted for 0.2 percent of the total catches, so we're a very small player in this fishery.

The Deputy Director of the Forum Fisheries Agency, Wez Norris, says the bans can be ineffective as there are ways around the rules.

WEZ NORRIS: During those months you have very little bigeye being caught but one of the responses of the industry has been to fish more heavily on FADs in the other eight months of the year and so that's reduced the effectiveness of the measure.

Wez Norris says the difficulty also lies in convincing the purse seine fishery not to kill off juvenile bigeye tuna with FADs, as it's the longline fishery that relies on bigeye catches.

WEZ NORRIS: The Commission has struggled to find a suitable package of arrangements, it's too easy for those with a vested interest in one fishery to blame the other one and you end up with too much argument. But where it is in the purse seine fishery's direct interest is to avoid more draconian measures that come at a cost to them.

Wez Norris says last year there was a limitation on use of FADs outside the ban period, and he hopes those regulations will be seen Pacific wide this year.