It might not be a highly publicized event but Manila hosted last week an important international conference that will have a huge impact on that grilled tuna you will be eating for this year’s Christmas party—the annual meeting of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC).
The WCPFC, which is based in Micronesia and established in 2005, was tasked to manage and conserve highly migratory fish stocks, such as tuna. The commission is made up of key fishing countries like Japan and the Philippines and the small Pacific islands whose economies rely heavily on its fishery industry.
The WCPFC is also mandated to manage and conserve other migratory fish like sharks and manta rays, but, in most of the commission meeting, the most contentious debates center on the sustainability of tuna. This is not surprising as the Western and Central Pacific Ocean is one of the world’s biggest sources of tuna. It accounted for nearly 60 percent of the global tuna catch in 2016—this is equivalent to 2.9 million tons of tuna, worth over $5 billion.
And then there’s the fact that tuna is not only highly migratory, but are also widely traded and consumed. Because, let’s face it, our bleeding environmentalist hearts may mourn the extinction of sharks and mantra rays as this will affect the marine biodiversity and other yadah yadah that at best are mostly mental to us. But tuna is different, its possible extinction hits us in the gut. Because unless we can cultivate tuna in our fishponds, the only way we can have tuna is to catch them in the sea.
And unless an international body like the WCPFC can legally bind its members to agree on certain measures that will ensure continuous supply of tuna for a long time, we might finally have to say good-bye to canned tuna and tuna sashimi.
The good news is, after a marathon five-day meeting which lasted until 3 a.m. last Friday (December 8), WCPFC member-countries and territories finally agreed to a set of interim measures for the conservation and management of tropical tuna varieties like skipjack (used mostly for canned tuna), bigeye and yellowfin (both of which are served to us either as grilled tuna steaks or as ahi tuna sushi/sashimi).
These measures, which will be in place in the next three years, include limiting the use of fish-aggregating devices (FADs)—buoys used to attract and catch fish. When large fishing vessels use large purse-seine nets with FADs to catch tuna, these nets also end up accidentally catching other marine animals like sharks, sea turtles and dolphins, hence threatening the marine ocean systems. These nets also accidentally catch juvenile tuna, which can keep them from breeding and repopulating.
The WCPFC has prohibited the use of FADs for three months in the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and two months in the high seas, excluding Kiribati-flagged vessels which fish in the high seas adjacent to the Kiribati’s EEZ, and Philippine vessels operating in high seas pocket one. The WCPFC has also set a certain number of fishing days in the high seas and EEZs.
But while this is a welcome development, several conservation and public-interest groups are not happy with one major provision in the agreed conservation and management measures for tuna—that is increasing the catch limit for bigeye tuna by nearly 10 percent more than current levels, or practically ignoring the scientific committee’s recommendation that, while bigeye tuna is not overfished, it’s still important to maintain the catch limit at its current level so as not to decrease biomass spawning stock.
A statement issued by Amanda Nickson, director of international fisheries for The Pew Charitable Trusts, said tropical tuna management in the western and central Pacific Ocean “took a disappointing turn when governments at the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission agreed to a measure that does not achieve the scientific advice, leading to an unacceptable risk that the bigeye tuna population will drop below healthy levels.”
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I find it encouraging that canned-tuna manufacturers in Southeast Asia are also taking the sustainability issue to heart. After all, if the manufacturers themselves refused to recognize the importance of conservation and management measures, how can we consumers expect to have a more sustainably sourced canned tuna? Sure, we can always boycott products that are not ethically or sustainably produced, but unless the manufacturers themselves are pressured (or encouraged) to do the right thing, don’t expect things to change.
This is why I welcome the Southeast Asia Cannery Intervention’s position paper that was submitted in last week’s WCPFC meeting. The position paper, signed by some of the region’s biggest canneries, including the Philippines’s Alliance Select Foods International Inc., Thai Union and PT Aneka Tuna Indonesia, called for stronger conservation and management measures, including limiting the use of FADs and longliners, promoting a low-impact fishing method like handlining and using pole and liner and stopping slave labor employed in some fishing vessels.
The processors in Southeast Asia also committed to “implement reforms to address human rights, transshipment, longline and FADs with clear milestones by 2020.” They also agreed to more dialogues with key stakeholders, including government agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), workers and consumers groups.
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If there’s one thing that can be frustrating about the WCPFC meeting, the lack of transparency is high up on the list. The last time Manila hosted this event was in 2012, and I remembered that, at that time, a journalist like me can join the sessions as a nonparticipating observer. I’m also free to interview officials and other concerned parties.
I honestly don’t know why things changed this year as I didn’t only had to register (which is on par for the course given the number of hao siao reporters out there), but journalists were also blocked from attending meetings and from conducting ambush interviews. If we want interviews with officials, we had to schedule it by submitting a request to the media center which was managed by the Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources. Which I dutifully did, and as of this writing, I’m still waiting for that interview schedule.
But it’s not only the media that had a hard time gaining access to an event which has a huge impact to the public. Vince Cinches, head of delegation from Greenpeace Southeast Asia-Philippines, questioned why conservation NGOs were excluded in some key discussions. I asked him if such exclusion happened in past meetings held in other countries, such as Fiji and Indonesia. Cinches, who has been attending these meetings for the past few years, said that was never an issue in other WCPFC meetings.
In a statement issued after the meeting, Cinches said the new measure raising catch limit for bigeye tuna “is more of a political compromise arrived behind closed doors with some Pacific nations, such as Papua New Guinea, pushing NGOs out. It failed to recognize the scientific advice nor side on precautionary measures.” He then suggested the need for a more open discussion that will include other stakeholders like NGOs and small-scale tuna fishers.
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It will take more than my column to discuss tuna and sustainability. But if you want to know more about it, there are some resources online that you might want to check out.
If you want to know more about slave labor in the high seas, you might want to read this Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative piece by the Associated Press: https://www.ap.org/explore/seafood-from-slaves.
If you want to know if your favorite brand of canned tuna is sustainably sourced, you can download Greenpeace’s report on Southeast Asian canneries at this link: https://www.greenpeace.org/seasia/PageFiles/742678/Greenpeace-Canned%20Tuna%20Report%202016%20online.pdf.
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Prime Sarmiento is a longtime business journalist who specializes in food, agribusiness and commodities-trade reporting. Her stories have been published in both local and international publications, including Nikkei Asian Review, China Daily, Science and Development Network and Dow Jones Newswires.
Comments and ideas are welcome at prime.sarmiento@gmail.com.