GENERAL SANTOS CITY (MindaNews / 12 March) – Fisheries officials are projecting an increase of around 50,000 metric tons (MT) in the country’s annual tuna landings once fishing companies here complete the deployment of their 36-vessel quota into the reopened high seas of the tuna-rich western Pacific Ocean.
Lawyer Asis Perez, Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) national director, said tuna fishing companies based in this city have already deployed 14 catcher vessels into the Pocket 1 of the western Pacific Ocean’s high seas since it was reopened to Philippines-based fishing vessels in September last year.
“We have 14 vessels operating in the area right now. That (number) would have been 20 already if not for typhoon Pablo,” he said in an interview.
He said six of the tuna catcher vessels that resumed operations in the area last year had went missing and were presumed to have sunk following the onslaught of typhoon “Pablo” off Mindanao’s eastern seaboard last Dec.[]
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A total of 47 fishing vessels owned by tuna fishing companies based in this city went missing at the height of the super typhoon. Eight bodies were recovered while 352 crew members from the area remained missing and were so far presumed dead.
The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) reopened Pocket 1 of the Pacific high seas to local fishing fleets in September last year following an extended fishing ban that started on Jan. 1, 2010.
Pocket 1 is located in an area of about 590,000 square kilometers north of Papua New Guinea and east of southern Indonesia, which are areas closest to the Philippines and where local purse seine tuna fishing companies operate.
The WCPFC, a treaty-based organization that leads the conservation and management of fish stocks in the Pacific Ocean, initially imposed a two-year fishing ban in Pockets 1 and 2 of the high seas in the western and eastern areas to replenish the dwindling stocks of the highly migratory tuna species.
The ban was imposed on all its 25-member countries and 10 other observer-states as a result of scientific studies and the emergence of statistics that showed the drastic decline of tuna fish stocks, especially bigeye and yellowfin tuna.
Dr. Alma Dickson, chief of BFAR’s Marine Fisheries Development Center, said they were assisting tuna fishing companies in properly complying with the requirements set by the WCPFC for fishing vessels to facilitate their deployment into the reopened high seas.
She said these include the installation of a vessel monitoring system (VMS), deployment of an observer and the use of appropriate net size to prevent catching of juvenile tuna.
The WCPFC earlier set that “purse seine net shall have mesh sizes not less than 3.5 inches starting at the mid-body to the entire wing while ring nets shall have mesh sizes not less than 3.5 inches at both wings.”
Dickson said most fishing companies have been facing difficulty in complying with the fish net requirement due to their high costs.
“A VMS only costs around P180,000 but the nets could cost millions,” she said.
Perez said they were hoping that local tuna fishing companies would be able to fill up their 36-vessel quota within the year.
“Our main consideration in meeting that quota is the additional catch of around 50,000 MT that we will get there.[]