Fiji group says fixing tuna issue too little too late

Transcript

The Fiji political opposition grouping, the United Front for a Democratic Fiji says the fisheries ministry has failed to address problems in the tuna industry with urgency.

The UFDF says a suggestion by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Forests to set up a committee to look into the issue is too little too late.

The comments follow revelations by the Fiji Fish Marketing Group, the country's tuna fishing industry has gone well beyond a crisis, with years of overfishing in the Southwest Pacific leading to hundreds of job losses and a loss of millions of dollars each year.

A leader of the UFDF, Mick Beddoes told Beverley Tse about the repercussions of the crisis.

MICK BEDDOES: The problem is two-fold. One is the external factor whereby the issuing of licences to foreign countries to fish in the Pacific has gone out of control and then of course the second part of the problem is that a great majority of these international vessels are subsidised by China and our local vessels haven't got a hope in hell in competing with those and even some of those vessels that have been subsidised still can't operate so what I am saying is it would appear from all the information that we have that there has been a significant depletion of the fish   
because of the lack of control and management of it. Now, the other part is of course domestically, where the same thing occurs where there are too many fishing licences issued and therefore this whole thing is just not sustainable.

BEVERLEY TSE: So, are you suggesting there needs to be a reform of all these licences to foreign countries and a relook at the subsidies?

MB: Yes, I think a holistic approach has to be adopted here and very quickly. Our fear is that, like we are saying, it is probably too little too late. Organising another committee to look into the plight and some of the persons involved in that committee are part of the group of officials who haven't been able to deal with this problem in the last seven years. We've made inquiries with a number of the stakeholders, who are the fishing operators, who are being affected by this, to ask if they were asked to put in or become part of this suggested committee to look into the matter and they haven't been invited. So, there needs to be a realistic approach.  It is a major problem and while many people may not understand the total complexities of it but certainly it's going to have a negative impact on most of the Pacific Islands if this wholesale depletion of our stock is allowed to continue.  

BT: Do you support the idea though of a new committee being set up to look at this fishing issue?

MB: I guess we would support something like that providing that the main stakeholders, who are the ones affected, are part and parcel of that solution or the attempt to find a solution.