5 Aug 2013

Sustainably caught tuna possible boon for local Pacific fishery

1:23 pm on 5 August 2013

A new study says international consumer support for sustainably caught tuna could support Pacific nations moving towards a more locally owned and operated fishery.

The report is a collaborative effort between academic experts, tuna fisheries practitioners and Greenpeace.

The lead author of the report, Dr Kate Barclay from Sydney's University of Technology, believes it's time to move away from solely relying on large-scale foreign fishing of the tuna resource.

"At the moment with demand for ethically sourced tuna seemingly commercially significant in some of the big markets around the world at the moment, there seems to be more opportunity for that and the price has also been good enough to make it less difficult to get into fishing and make a profit out of it than it has been perhaps ten of fifteen years ago."

Dr Kate Barclay says previous less successful operations have generally been run by governments and she says lessons have to be learnt from the past