The Pacific Commons Attempts to Save Declining Tuna
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The over-fishing of the oceans is an increasingly worrisome story. The good news is that a number of Pacific Island Nations – "PINs" – are calling for the creation of the Pacific Commons Marine Reserves. The idea is to protect the biodiversity of the ocean waters, smaller-scale domestic fishing fleets, and the region's food security.
The Pacific Commons would be the first no-take marine reserves ever established in international waters. Pacific Island countries that support the reserves include Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Cook Islands. Greenpeace, which is supporting the effort, has called for 40 percent of the world's oceans to be declared marine reserves.
The basic problem is that the oceans have become a free-for-all zone that are easily exploited by globe-trotting industrial fishing fleets. An estimated 80% of the Pacific tuna catch is made by foreign fishing fleets that sell to Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, the U.S. and the U.K. Pacific Island Nations reap only about 6% of the value of fish caught in their waters.
This propels a nasty downward spiral: The oceans become depleted of fish, biodiversity declines, regional fishers lose their livelihoods, and eventually, the ocean fisheries will collapse.
The fishers of the Pacific Ocean want to avoid this fate so they are taking pro-active steps to protect their fishing grounds from outsiders who have little interest in the long-term sustainability of the catch. The idea is to create marine reserves that function somewhat like national parks. They would be a safe haven for marine life and cannot be exploited by any fishing or extractive industries. A report by Greenpeace, “Rescuing the Pacific and Its Tuna,” (pdf) describes this campaign to restore tuna stocks in the region and stop "Illegal Unregulated, Unreported” fishing, otherwise known as IUU fishing. (More on the fishing problems in the Pacific can be found here.)
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