The importance of fish to the people of the Pacific Islands
cannot be over-emphasized (see foldout map). The reason– 98% of the 27 million km2 under the jurisdiction of
the 22 Pacific Island countries and territories is ocean.
For many of these ‘large ocean states’ tuna is theirgreatest resource. Tuna is in demand worldwide, and thecatch from Pacific Island waters supplies more than 30%of the global tuna market.
For several Pacific Island countries, access fees paidby industrial fleets to harvest tuna provide 10–80% of
all government revenue. In addition, tuna fishing andprocessing have created more than 23,000 jobs acrossthe region.
Tuna is also vital to local food security. In a region where
non-communicable diseases due to unhealthy diets andchanges in lifestyle are the worst in the world, increasing
local access to fish is a practical way of improving nutrition.
The problem is that population growth is driving a gap
between sustainable harvests from coastal fisheries and thefish needed for food security. Tuna is needed to fill the gap.

A new Roadmap
Recognising the importance of fisheries, Pacific Island
Leaders recently endorsed the Regional Roadmap for
Sustainable Pacific Fisheries.

The goals of the Roadmap include:• sustaining key tuna species by agreeing on target
reference points for harvests within three years,
and moving the status of each species clearly towards
these targets within 10 years;• doubling the value of the tuna catch within 10 years;• creating 18,000 new jobs in tuna processing, and as
vessel crew, observers and fisheries management staff,within 10 years; and• increasing the amount of tuna allocated to domestic
consumption each year by 40,000 tonnes within
10 years.

Challenges
The Roadmap is a blueprint for progress but several
challenges must be overcome to reach the goals. Bigeye
tuna is overfished, illegal, unreported and unregulated(IUU) fishing is a constant threat, the region’s longline
fisheries are barely economic, increased effort in thepurse-seine fishery targeting skipjack tuna is driving
down the value of the catch, fishing on the high seas islargely uncontrolled, and almost 90% of the tuna caught
in the waters of Pacific Island countries is processed
outside the region. In addition, climate change isexpected to alter the distribution and abundance of tuna.

The Conservation International (CI) Tuna Initiative will build on strong existing
partnerships and engagement throughout the region to assist Pacific Island
countries address these challenges, and help fulfill their aspirations for the useof tuna resources in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean (WCPO).

Photo: © ISSF/Jeff Muir

Value of Pacific tuna

Photo: © Natalie Behring

TUNA
INITIATIVE

Supporting the Roadmap
The goals of the CI Tuna Initiative are to:• assist national and regional fisheries agencies sustain tuna catches and the ecosystemthat supports them; and• increase the benefits from tuna fisheries for Pacific Island economies and societies.
In partnership with country leaders, and regional and national fisheries agencies, we haveidentified solutions to address five key challenges identified in the Roadmap. The CI Tuna
Initiative will help promote the investments needed to assist Pacific Island countries andregional agencies address these challenges and implement the Roadmap.

Investment opportunities

1. Sustaining tuna fisheries
Identifying the spatial structure of stocks
Effective management of tuna fisheries requires asound understanding of the spatial structure of eachspecies. Where a species has multiple self-replenishing
populations, each ‘stock’ needs to be assessed andmanaged separately. Tagging programs help provide
information on the spatial structure of stocks and need
to be continued. However, new genetic tools andcollection of samples by observers on purse-seine
vessels now create the opportunity to greatly improve
our understanding of tuna resources.
The CI Tuna Initiative will help support the collectionand analysis of samples needed to map the spatial
structure of each tuna species based on population
genetics and other biological markers (e.g. otoliths).
The new ‘resource maps’ will provide a better foundation
for the stock assessments used to set catch limits for eachtuna species. As part of the Pacific Oceanscape, countries
are establishing large-scale marine protected areas toachieve a range of conservation goals. The new resource
maps will also help in the evaluation of area closures in
the management and conservation of tuna resources.

Reducing fishing mortality of bigeye tunaBigeye tuna is overfished (the number of spawning fishis now only 16% of the original, unfished level), mainly
because large catches of bigeye tuna are taken by purseseine vessels targeting skipjack tuna around drifting fish

aggregating devices (FADs) (see map). To help overcome
the high fishing mortality of bigeye tuna, the CI Tuna
Initiative will help develop new fishing methods that enablepurse-seine fleets to target skipjack tuna around FADs
without catching many bigeye tuna. The focus will be on:1) innovations to detect the relative abundance of skipjack,yellowfin and bigeye tuna associated with FADs so that
captains can make informed decisions about where tofish to avoid catching bigeye tuna; and 2) new FAD-fishingmethods that exclude bigeye tuna, e.g., equipping FADs
with systems that repel or attract skipjack or bigeye tuna.

2. Sustaining the ecosystem
Minimising impacts on sharks
Capture of sharks in WCPO tuna fisheries for theirvaluable fins has severely depleted populations ofsome shark species. The practice of removing fins anddiscarding the remainder of the shark is widespread.
There is strong opposition to shark finning on thegrounds of cruelty and food wastage. In response,
effective ways of managing shark bycatch and sharkfinning have been developed.
Pacific Island countries haveagreed to implement suchmeasures but often lack theresources required. TheCI Tuna Initiative will help
support Pacific Island
countries to implement
and enforce shark
management measures.

Photo: © ISSF/Fabien Forget

3. Monitoring, control

4. Increasing the value of tunaand surveillance

Investigate value
creation opportunities

IUU fishing is a constant threat to the sustainability oftuna fisheries and erodes economic returns for PacificIsland countries from their tuna fisheries. The CI Tuna
Initiative will help support the following activities toimprove monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS)of the region’s tuna fisheries.

Improve regional
surveillance capability
Effective MCS depends on timely collection andanalysis of fisheries information. The CI Tuna Initiative
will help 1) establish MCS operation centers in PacificIsland countries to enhance the use of fisheries
surveillance information; 2) purchase safety andcommunication devices for fisheries observers;and 3) obtain satellite imagery to strengthen thecapacity of Pacific Island countries to identify andintercept illegal fishing vessels.

Develop MCS expertise
A high level of expertise is needed for effective MCS.
To assist Pacific Island countries to develop these skills,
the CI Tuna Initiative will help support foundation MCS
training programs for compliance officers, advanced
MCS training courses and a career pathway.

E-monitoring
The effectiveness of management measures to maintaintuna stocks at desired levels needs to be assessed bymonitoring catches. The CI Tuna Initiative will help assess
the feasibility of transferring new E-monitoring technology
to all purse-seine vessels. This technology promises toovercome the biases associated with existing sampling
methods and provide regional management agencies
with percentage catch composition and size-frequency
for all tuna species in real time.

In March 2015, Conservation International released thereport, Value Creation Opportunities for WCPO Island
Nations in the Tuna Industry. The report identified 10
opportunities for Pacific Island countries to work withcompanies in the supply chain to increase the valueof tuna and economic returns. The CI Tuna Initiative
will assist Pacific Island countries to explore specificopportunities to add value to their tuna resources.

Bio-economic modelling
Catch affects the size of tuna stocks and, in turn, theprofitability of fisheries. Determining the appropriate
allowable catch for each species is important if PacificIsland countries are to maximise economic benefits
from tuna fisheries. These important decisions requirebio-economic modelling. The CI Tuna Initiative will help
support development of new bio-economic models toenable Pacific Island countries to determine optimum
catch levels for all tuna fisheries in the WCPO.

5. Improving food security
Installing more nearshore FADs
Nearshore FADs are recognised as an efficient way of
increasing access to tuna for Pacific Island communities,and promise to transfer some fishing effort from coral
reefs to oceanic fish resources. Nearshore FADs differ
from the drifting FADs used by industrial tuna fleets
because they are anchored close enough to the coast
to be used by small-scale fishers, with minimal bycatch.
The CI Tuna Initiative will help identify priority locations
for nearshore FADs across the region and assist PacificIsland fisheries agencies to include FADs as part of thenational infrastructure for food security.

How we will work

Increasing access to tunain urban areas
Rapid urbanization is alienating a growing proportionof Pacific Island people from easy access to fish.
Sorting of purse-seine catches to remove bycatchand small tuna during transshipping operations inregional ports provides the opportunity to supply fish
to urban populations at low cost. The CI Tuna Initiative
will help provide the infrastructure needed for hygienic
marketing of small tuna and bycatch offloaded bypurse-seine vessels, and assist small businesses to
distribute this fish to urban and surrounding areas.

Develop small-scale pole-and-line
fishing for tuna
People in the urban areas of Fiji do not have frequent
access to tuna and bycatch from purse-seine vessels
because little transshipping occurs there. Increasing
demand for fresh fish from Fiji’s growing population
may set the scene for small-scale, pole-and-line fishingaround nearshore FADs. The CI Tuna Initiative will
help assess the feasibility of establishing enterprizes
based on a combination of such pole-and-line
operations and tuna fishing tourism.

Conservation International builds upon astrong foundation of science, partnership andfield demonstration to empower societies toresponsibly and sustainabily care for nature andglobal biodiversity for the wellbeing of humanity.
The CI Tuna Initiative has been designed inconsultation with national fisheries departments,
the Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA), theSecretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC),
the Western and Central Pacific FisheriesCommission, international organisations(e.g., WorldFish) and non-governmentalorganisations (e.g., International Sustainable
Seafood Foundation and World Wildlife Fund).
In partnership with national and regional
agencies, CI will help Pacific Island countries
achieve the tuna-related goals in the PacificIsland Forum Leader’s Regional Roadmap for
Sustainable Pacific Fisheries and the Pacific
Oceanscape. We will help mobilize support for
Pacific Island countries to manage and conserve
their tuna resources, and the tropical Pacific
Ocean ecosystem.

Climate change adaptation
Recent modelling shows that the distributions of
the main tuna species in the tropical Pacific arelikely to shift progressively to the east. The CI
Tuna Initiative will assist Pacific Island countries
to be ‘climate smart’ when implementing theRoadmap. Several of the activities in Investment
Opportunities 1, 4 and 5 are win-win adaptations
that address present-day challenges and also assist
Pacific Island countries to minimise the risks posedby climate change, and maximise the opportunities.

Photo: © Asian Development Bank/Flickr Creative Commons

Enquiries
For further information, please contact:
Jonathan Peacey
Senior Director Fisheries, Conservation International
jpeacey@conservation.org