Anger over lack of Asian tuna catch data

Transcript

Western Pacific fisheries managers are angry that four Asian nations are refusing to provide data that would help determine the current level of tuna stock.

Major stock assessments of all tuna varieties are being presented to the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission's Scientific Committee meeting this week in the Marshall Islands.

Commission member countries are required to provide operational catch data to scientists, but Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China, who are all members, are not letting go of this information.

Our correspondent, Giff Johnson, told Leilani Momoisea that fisheries officials in the region say this is unacceptable.

GIFF JOHNSON: Because this is a big gap in the knowledge of what's happening with the tuna species and we've seen during this week's meeting, scientists have shown that the population of bigeye has reduced to 16% of what its original population numbers were and it's on the red flag list as being overfished but other species are going down too and the question is if you don't have all the information about where fish are caught and how they're being caught and what species and so on it's pretty hard to have a total picture of what's going on in the fishery and that's why Pacific Island officials are quite upset about this lack of information from the Asian fishing countries.

LEILANI MOMOISEA: And apart from not being able to get the full picture, what other larger implications does this lack of data mean?

GJ: Well I asked one of the scientists this and he says frankly it could go either way. It could be that the fishery isn't in a more negative situation when you look at it with all this extra data but it also could be that things are worse off than they presently are. What the Fisheries Director for the Marshall Islands, Glen Joseph, told me this uncertainty has a major impact on Pacific islands who see the tuna resource as food security, as part of sustainable development and just basically their own survival into the long term.

LM: What's being proposed as to what they can do about this lack of data? What are some of the actions that are going to have to happen now as a result?

GJ: The islands are looking at whether they're going to have to propose tightening or changing the rule governing this. Because the rule is already there, I mean it's a condition of membership but these countries haven't delivered on it so one view is to maybe try to ratchet it up, look at possible sanctions if people continue not to provide the information. Another area is just looking at the conservation efforts that have to go in to preserve the resource for the long term. Obviously bigeye is in a very dangerous situation and the stock needs rebuilding so efforts are going to have to go in on that.

Giff Johnson says this might mean reducing fishing opportunities for the distant water fishing nations.